Smithereens

Wren has come to New York and wants to be famous. What she does is not clear; she makes no music, has no job and earns nothing. She pastes photographs of herself in the subway and introduces herself to people. She cannot pay her rent and is put out. She meets Paul, who lives in a van in a car park; he came from Montana and wants to go back. Wren is not interested in him. She is interested in Eric; he is in a band and says he can take her to Los Angeles. What Eric says is not true. Susan Seidelman directs; it is her first feature. Susan Berman plays Wren and Brad Rijn plays Paul; the punk musician Richard Hell plays Eric. It is an American production. It was made on a very low budget in real locations in New York. It was selected for the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the first time that happened for an American independent film. Its ground is the last period of the New York punk scene; the clubs are closing and the scene is breaking up. Wren is not shown as likeable; the narrative does not put her in the right and never says whether she has any talent. The image is rough and records the city of the period directly. Its limit is structure; the plot is loose and the narrative arrives nowhere. Who it is for: viewers who like American independent cinema and stories of New York in the punk years. Who it is not for: the character is repellent, the story thin, and the ending offers no hope.