New York City Girl (1982)
8KNew York City Girl: Directed by Susan Seidelman. With Susan Berman, Brad Rijn, Richard Hell, Nada Despotovich. A talent-challenged girl tries to promote herself to stardom in New York’s waning punk music world.
“Things to be aware of: This movie is a downer.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis movie is interminably slow at times. Feel free to skip forward with the remote. There is not a lot of plot to miss.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHaving offered those two disclaimers, this movie is definitely worth watching if you are inclined towards depressing tales of urban outcasts. Like most, this one centers around a subculture, but is really about the kind of tragic dreamers that seem drawn to failure like moths to a porch light.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat makes this story so compelling in spite of the rather amateurish acting and film-making is the gradual, offhand, and absolutely realistic ways in which the different characters casually dig themselves into ever more inescapable holes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a story not about the 80s or punk rock, itu0026#39;s a story about young people with unfocused ambition who are sucked in by the glamor of the scene, whatever it may be. These are the fashion victims weu0026#39;ve all known: people who have a new best friend every week, with whom are going to write a screenplay, go on a road trip, start a band, whatever. The people who are too busy and too cool to be cared about unless youu0026#39;re going to make them famous, people who do not realize that the glittering lights of the city at night are just stores and bars, who keep thinking that one of them is going to turn out to be magic, who see everyday life as some kind of hoax that they wonu0026#39;t be conned into falling for.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat is beautiful about u0026quot;Smithereensu0026quot; is the perfect depiction of the blind, frantic pursuit of a better, purer, more exciting life that leads to the opposite. The sad, romantic naiveté that looks for rescue in a bar at 2am is a target for every kind of leech whose belief in magic has burned out and turned to cynical opportunism. The neophyte victims gradually and seamlessly become predators themselves, preying on others who are looking for late-night magic. Dreams of romance, fame, and adventure become grubbing squabbles over sex and money and these dreamers donu0026#39;t even see it happening until, disdainful of everything, they end up with nothing.”
