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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

09.25.2003

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flick pick | Singles 1992
Directed + written by: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon, Sheila Kelley
Language: English
Look for it at the video store under: comedy, drama
Watch it when you’re in the mood for something: quintessentially quasi-adult, witty
The critic says: ½/ 5 the rating system explained
Fun factor: ½/5 

Plot synopsis It's the early 90s in Seattle, and in a cheery little apartment building, the mostly twenty-something, single inhabitants flirt, date, mate, and grouse about their inability to find that perfect someone with whom to spend the rest of their days. Steve is an urban planner working on a plan for a Supertrain to alleviate the city's traffic problems; when he meets pretty environmentalist Linda at a club one night, he's instantly smitten. The feeling is basically mutual, but both are so caught up in playing the dating game that despite the fact that they may very well be perfect for each other, they nearly sabotage their chances at making it ever work. Meanwhile, Steve's ex Janet waits tables at a nearby coffeeshop while she saves up money, and toys with the idea of going to architecture school. Janet is involved in a messy on-again, off-again relationship with her neighbor Cliff, an appallingly oblivious rockstar wannabe who doesn't appreciate spunky Janet half as much as she adores him. Yet another neighbor, Debbie, takes a more proactive approach to dating when she decides to take advantage of a gift her friends once gave her as a joke, and cashes in that gift certificate for a video dating service.

Review "Somewhere around 25, bizarre becomes immature." So says Bridget Fonda as Janet Livermore in Singles, Cameron Crowe's look at life and love amongst Gen-X-ers in grunge-era Seattle. Back when I was in my early twenties, Janet's fears pretty well summed up my own: this, then, is the only rationalization I can provide for why I auditioned for MTV's The Real World shortly before my twenty-fifth birthday (Hawaii -- just to further date me). It was a rather pathetic (and thankfully, unsuccessful) last stab at the wackiness and frivolity allotted to youth before I officially became Old. Well into my decrepit late twenties now, I can look back on those years of post-college, I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-with-my-life anxiety, and have a good chuckle. Singles doesn't feel quite as relevant to my life as it did back then, but I still love it. The dialogue is funny; the characters, most notably Matt Dillon's delightfully dumb-as-rocks Cliff, are pretty damn charming; the movie is whimsically edited as a series of quirky short sketches focusing on different events in each character's life. And the music instantly throws me back into deep high school/college nostalgia for flannel shirts, and all that angst-ridden, Seattle-sound grunge (the members of Pearl Jam even have small, very amusing roles in Singles, as the bandmates of lead singer Cliff). It's not a mind-blowing Fine Film by any means, but there's something about this movie that just strikes a chord with me. And every time I watch it, Singles gives me the fuzzy-warm smilies inside. —reviewed by Yee-Fan Sun

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