ALONG with Douglas Coupland’s Generation X novel, director Richard Linklater’s movie was most responsible for defining the era of the early ’90s, when “slacker� became not so much a criticism as a lifestyle choice, driven on a soundtrack of grunge or shoegazing.
Originally released back in 1991, and costing a little over $25,000, Slacker was a surprise cult hit catapulted into the mainstream, following a series of (very tentatively linked) stories about the lives of various residents of Austin, Texas, Linklater’s home town.
From the opening sequence, where a rather messed-up individual deliberately runs over his own mother, to the chap who believes America has been on the Moon from the ’50s, to various other “curio� individuals, Slacker deals with people who might normally be seen as somewhat at the edge of society.
Slacker is almost onomatopoeic film-making, with little real plot or action. Its free-form style was undoubtedly influential in the rise of independent film-making in America in the ’90s, but that almost counts against it 16 years on, as this type of stuff now feels rather over-familiar. A pleasant diversion, but has lost a lot of its impact.
Rating: 3/5
Extras: 1/5
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