By Keri O’Shea
I always fucking hated Beverly Hills 90210 with an absolute passion. As imports from the US go, it’s right up there with Ruby Wax and the school prom: a tedious, aspirational display of not-very-much being enacted by people who were far too old to be hanging around a school anyway. So, you can imagine how far my heart sank when I received the press release for Gregg Araki’s movie Nowhere, and found it gleefully described as ‘a Beverly Hills 90210 episode on acid’. Oh. dear. As Nowhere is also part of a trilogy, I should probably offer another mea culpa here, by saying that I haven’t seen the two other films – in fact, this was my first experience of an Araki film altogether. This may explain some of my enmity towards Nowhere. I accept that. The rest of it can be explained by the fact that this is just a terrible film.
Plot doesn’t seem to figure all that highly here, and nor does characterisation, but here – essentially – is what happens. ‘Dark’ (now how’s that for a nickname you chose for yourself?) is a teenage boy going through a totally bogus existential crisis whereby it doesn’t seem like anyone, anywhere will ever truly love him for himself. He ponders this crisis when he’s not drawling witticisms, participating in slow-mo masturbation or indulging in his other favourite hobby, video editing. He adores his sorta girlfriend Mel, but she’s forever hooking up with megabitch Lucifer (and again, make up your own nickname dear?) and then, everyone they know seems to be in the throes of various dysfunctional, check-box kinky relationships and flirtations with drugs. This is the order of the day as they all rock up to a party one Friday night and head for even more weirdness along the way…
In the interests of balance, and to try to be as positive as I can, I’ll get on and talk about the things I liked about the film. Well, it certainly boasts an interesting, distinguished cast, many of whom went on to do great work. We have James Duval, Heather Graham, Mena Suvari, Christina Applegate, Rachel True, and in cameo roles, Traci Lords, Rose McGowan and Shannen Doherty. You can’t deny, that’s a hell of a roll call. In terms of how the film was shot (as opposed to why, ahem), I liked lots of aspects of the cinematography. Coming at this film from the perspective of someone who usually reviews new films which often have identical, washed-out colour palates, it was refreshing to see such a bright, bold film, peopled with bright, bold people; 90s sub-cultures definitely had more variety to them, and that’s reflected here. Lots of the sets are superb, interesting to look at, and benefit by the interesting use of lighting, whilst a lot of the songs on the soundtrack showcased the best of the sleazy alt-rock of the decade.
As I’ve said elsewhere, though, a film is not a painting. A film can look good, but if that’s all it can do, then it’s not enough – and Nowhere, ultimately, smacked of hedonism as imagined by someone who really doesn’t get out that much. Adding the correct jumble of drug and sex references and making a party the crux of the plot? I felt embarrassed and drained, by the end. The script, overblown but not so overblown that I could laugh at it or with it, is peppered with silly names, sillier insults and comes delivered by a horde of doe-eyed bulimics and unbelievable junkies. The inclusion of a rape scene felt like yet another cynical decision, the about-face fantastical elements which crept in towards the end of the film failed to add anything in the way of depth or exposition, and – well – all I could think of during Nowhere how much I now want to re-watch Fire Walk With Me to cleanse my palate.
Sure, it could just be that I don’t ‘get it’. That’s fine. I can live with that. My main sentiment, though, by the time the credits rolled was that Nowhere perfectly illustrates the problem with aspiring to surrealism. Here’s a truism: films which aspire to surrealism almost invariably suck. To come back to Fire Walk With Me, that’s a film which seems to naturally embody the thrill of the weird in the course of its storytelling and, as with all David Lynch movies which I’ve seen, it works very well indeed. Surrealism should be a pleasing side-effect, not a guiding principle, and if you try too hard to be weird, you’ll probably wind up being weak. Oh well, if you’re an Araki fan, you might be pleased to know that this upcoming DVD re-release will feature an audio commentary by the man himself, as well as by stars James Duval, Rachel True and Jordan Ladd. Meh.
Nowhere will be released by Second Sight on 26th August 2013.