A spunky Susan Berman ("Making Mr. Right") stars as Wren, a young New Yorker who's nothing if not ambitious. She yearns to make it as a manager in the punk music scene, and plasters posters of her mug everywhere she can. The trouble is, she's a hard-to-like type who doesn't care who she has to use in order to get what she wants. That includes taking advantage of nice guy Paul (Brad Rijn, "Special Effects"), a newcomer to town who lives out of his van in a lot by the East River. But she meets her match in Eric (punk icon Richard Hell, "Desperately Seeking Susan"), a musician on the rise who similarly takes advantage of others to attain his ends.
An intelligent, colorful, and ultimately sobering character study, "Smithereens" marked debuting filmmaker Susan Seidelman as a talent to watch. Working from a script co-written by future Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner ("Philadelphia"), she gets capable performances out of her largely no-name cast, and milks the East Village locales for all of the atmosphere that they can muster. The soundtrack is a hip collection of artists like The Feelies (who composed the score), The Raybeats, The Nitecaps, and Hells' own band Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The central character is flawed, to be sure, but compelling in her way, and the viewer waits to see if there's any real humanity to be found in her personality. All in all, this low-budget, independent feature (made for approximately $105,000) has a definite cult-movie charm about it. People can comment on the amateurishness of certain aspects all they want, but there's no denying that Seidelman knows how to tell a decent, gritty story that doesn't guarantee a happy ending.
Look hard to spot future stars Chris Noth ('Law and Order') and Roma Maffia ('Profiler'), and cult actress Geretta Geretta ("Rats: Night of Terror") as prostitutes in the concluding minutes. Musician / character actor John Doe (of the band X) has an unbilled cameo as a doorman.
Eight out of 10.
An intelligent, colorful, and ultimately sobering character study, "Smithereens" marked debuting filmmaker Susan Seidelman as a talent to watch. Working from a script co-written by future Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner ("Philadelphia"), she gets capable performances out of her largely no-name cast, and milks the East Village locales for all of the atmosphere that they can muster. The soundtrack is a hip collection of artists like The Feelies (who composed the score), The Raybeats, The Nitecaps, and Hells' own band Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The central character is flawed, to be sure, but compelling in her way, and the viewer waits to see if there's any real humanity to be found in her personality. All in all, this low-budget, independent feature (made for approximately $105,000) has a definite cult-movie charm about it. People can comment on the amateurishness of certain aspects all they want, but there's no denying that Seidelman knows how to tell a decent, gritty story that doesn't guarantee a happy ending.
Look hard to spot future stars Chris Noth ('Law and Order') and Roma Maffia ('Profiler'), and cult actress Geretta Geretta ("Rats: Night of Terror") as prostitutes in the concluding minutes. Musician / character actor John Doe (of the band X) has an unbilled cameo as a doorman.
Eight out of 10.