A superficial film with an unworthy reputation

Rating: Null/10 (18 May 2000)

Despite outrageous popular and press support, I can only give this film a marginal pass. And after careful consideration, the primary reason is the setting.
I have been told it's about contemporary middle America. Well, it looks like upper-class America, but of course, America doesn't haven't classes. Or so we've been told. Maybe film reviewers need to tread the back streets a little more often.
The characters in this thoroughly disturbed setting range from the merely trivial to the psychotic and the utterly dysfunctional. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for them? Are we really supposed find deep affection with a kid who finds meaning in a plastic bag blowing in the wind? Are we impressed by a fourty-something who thinks that the sixties was about smoking a joint? Or an apparently experienced teenager who is really a prima donna?
Frankly, one can't care about these people. They are well fed, they live in fine houses, they have a good education. They have hot showers in the morning. And yet, because of their complete lack of anything resembling human spirit, they end up like idiots.
The poor dears, what a tragedy.
There is a modicum of humour in this film. There is a modicum of plot. There is nothing outstanding about the production. The theme is superficial and the setting deserves contempt. This is a film about the dysfunctional American middle-upper class. So what?
Give it five years. This film is sort of interesting but offers nothing in the long run. It will be forgotten.