Writer/director Richard Linklater’s seminal Slacker is a film that’s difficult to summarize. The movie is less of a cohesive story and more of a patchwork of innumerable vignettes that combine, like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, into a heartfelt portrait of Austin, Texas.
Yes, Slacker is a non-narrative film, the type of highfalutin, artsy-fartsy stuff typically confined to arthouse cinemas. And yet, Slacker might very well be the most entertaining art flick this side of Kubrick.
The film operates on a wholly emphatic level, nonjudgmentally observing the lives of various questionably-occupied Austinites for a seemingly random chunk of their day. The secret lies in the magic trick Linklater manages to pull again and again: Each little story starts off with something seemingly banal or awful but lasts just long enough for the ordinary to become revealing and the naughty to gain shades of grey.
It’s a powerful affirmation of the fact that everyone — high or drunk, poor or poorer, ugly or handsome — has a story to tell. It’s also immensely funny, with frequent bursts of absurd and cringe humor, culminating in a fantastic ending that basically parodies the conceit of the entire film.
Slacker ends up being a confirmation of a well-worn cliche (stop and smell the roses … ), yet it conveys all its ideas so implicitly and so casually that it never condescends. What the film preaches transcends tolerance; the title transforms from an insult into a rallying call for the marginalized, and, in the process, reminds all of us to embrace the strange, weird and unknown.
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