Dazed and ConfusedHindsight is 20/20...even through beer goggles. Set on the last day of school in 1976, Dazed and Confused tells the story of different teens enjoying the freedom of having the whole summer ahead of themselves, partying in a drunken and stoned night of debauchery and soul-searching. From the reluctant quarterback, Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London), to his protegee at the art of hanging out and playing it cool, Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins), these archetypes of days gone by make Dazed and Confused a convincing dialogue-driven drama and comedy that is dank with nostalgia.
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Dazed and Confused features a variety of stories that interweave over the course of the day that every teen relishes--liberation from the shackles of academia. One's ability to sympathize with the characters and their dilemmas has a lot to do with one's individual experiences, and the social strata one occupied in various cliques. [I was more able to relate to the awkward and intellectual trio comprised of the social-minded, would-be lawyer Mike Newhouse (Adam Goldberg), the shy romantic, Tony Olson (Anthony Rapp), and red-headed poker enthusiast, Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi).] Dazed and Confused also follows popular "jocks" like Pink, even though he intimates that he would rather start a rock band. Pink's buddies include Don Dawson (Sasha Jenson) and Benny (Cole Hauser), who relish the upcoming hazing ritual for prospective freshmen, fashioning hand crafted paddles and chasing their victims across town. The depiction of Austin, Texas in Dazed and Confused is obsessed with drug use and drinking--the movie's rating reads as containing "frequent and pervading drug use". Virtually every scene in Dazed and Confused involves scoring marijuana or beer, and sharing it with others is viewed as a sign of polite manners. It is a rite of passage for teenagers like Mitch, by shedding his proverbial skin of adolescence and hanging out with the "big kids" in high school--the world of "grown ups". Released in 1993, Dazed and Confused relies on nostalgia to prompt "hey, I knew a guy just like that in school" reactions from the audience. Characters are ciphers for people we knew growing up, like the perpetual stoner, Ron Slater (Rory Cochrane), who gives outlandish diatribes about how George and Martha Washington were prodigious growers of pot in the fields around Mount Vernon to justify his enthusiasm for reefer. Guys like Fred O'Bannion (Ben Affleck) use the hazing as an excuse to vent their anger issues on kids, bullying and tormenting them with glee. Few films walk the delicate line between parody and homage as well as Dazed and Confused, carrying the torch from precursors like American Graffiti and even Grease.
Dazed and Confused is a wistful recollection of the past, a fantasy where the consequences for everything from drug abuse to vandalism range from negligible to nonexistent. There is the occasional scare by the police for being disorderly and loitering on the football field at dawn, or a fight that breaks out with a bully. But these moments are small compared with the overall groove of Dazed and Confused, where the central theme is about looking back on these days with only fond memories, and remembering only good things. Dazed and Confused does not moralize about what teens "should" or "shouldn't" do; this is a realm where it is expected for the underage to party hard, and where the parents and the coaches are squares for trying to kill their buzz. The guru of this philosphy and ultimate "party dude" of the film is a guy named David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), who maintains a zen-like mellow attitude, and is revered for hosting a party. It's clear that guys like Wooderson are not your "pal"--he is a creepy thirty-something who leches around high school girls, and tries to get into their pants with promises of front-row tickets to Aerosmith. If there is a neutral point of view in Dazed and Confused, it belongs to Mitch. He is singled out for the hazing ritual because his older sister, Jodi (Michelle Burke), had the audacity to ask them to "take it easy on him"; after he wins the big baseball game, he is filled with dread since the bigger kids are poised to attack. Randall takes him under his wing after his initiation, and coaches him on how to "play it cool", so that he can turn the humiliation into a badge of honor. It becomes clear that the paddling--and all of the other high school hazings that are embedded into the fiber of the town--is a ritual that is arbitrary and meaningless. It is the same for the constant indulgence in beer and pot--an empty ritual devoid of any real significance, and propagated by peer pressure. It only exists as a tradition because it was presented as one by the prior "generation" of seniors, and is a hollow definition of what it means to be cool. This motif about how meaningless rituals are perpetuated is underscored in the scene where Mitch is hanging around with some of the seniors, who get the idea of trashing a bunch of mailboxes. They encourage him to grab a bowling ball and hurl it out the window at a parked car. When he throws it into a car, the glass shatters dramatically, and Mitch is shocked at what he's done--until the laughter of the seniors absolves him from moral responsibility. Mitch isn't a "bad kid", but he is caught up in the moment of being "one of the guys". This scene makes it clear that Mitch is not hanging out with "cool guys", but bullies and creeps, who equate vandalism with "goofing off". Dazed and Confused is a vibrant collage of nostalgia, and a pastiche of the "good old days"--whether it is true or just the way we remember it is less important than how it made us feel.
Recommended for: Fans of a comedy/drama that is rooted in its nostalgia for a specific time and place, and audiences will be hard pressed not to identify with at least part of the film on a personal level. Like the films from which it draws inspiration--like American Graffiti--it features early roles for actors who would go on to forge more successful careers later, and boasts a rich soundtrack of period-specific rock and roll.
Dazed and Confused is a wistful recollection of the past, a fantasy where the consequences for everything from drug abuse to vandalism range from negligible to nonexistent. There is the occasional scare by the police for being disorderly and loitering on the football field at dawn, or a fight that breaks out with a bully. But these moments are small compared with the overall groove of Dazed and Confused, where the central theme is about looking back on these days with only fond memories, and remembering only good things. Dazed and Confused does not moralize about what teens "should" or "shouldn't" do; this is a realm where it is expected for the underage to party hard, and where the parents and the coaches are squares for trying to kill their buzz. The guru of this philosphy and ultimate "party dude" of the film is a guy named David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), who maintains a zen-like mellow attitude, and is revered for hosting a party. It's clear that guys like Wooderson are not your "pal"--he is a creepy thirty-something who leches around high school girls, and tries to get into their pants with promises of front-row tickets to Aerosmith. If there is a neutral point of view in Dazed and Confused, it belongs to Mitch. He is singled out for the hazing ritual because his older sister, Jodi (Michelle Burke), had the audacity to ask them to "take it easy on him"; after he wins the big baseball game, he is filled with dread since the bigger kids are poised to attack. Randall takes him under his wing after his initiation, and coaches him on how to "play it cool", so that he can turn the humiliation into a badge of honor. It becomes clear that the paddling--and all of the other high school hazings that are embedded into the fiber of the town--is a ritual that is arbitrary and meaningless. It is the same for the constant indulgence in beer and pot--an empty ritual devoid of any real significance, and propagated by peer pressure. It only exists as a tradition because it was presented as one by the prior "generation" of seniors, and is a hollow definition of what it means to be cool. This motif about how meaningless rituals are perpetuated is underscored in the scene where Mitch is hanging around with some of the seniors, who get the idea of trashing a bunch of mailboxes. They encourage him to grab a bowling ball and hurl it out the window at a parked car. When he throws it into a car, the glass shatters dramatically, and Mitch is shocked at what he's done--until the laughter of the seniors absolves him from moral responsibility. Mitch isn't a "bad kid", but he is caught up in the moment of being "one of the guys". This scene makes it clear that Mitch is not hanging out with "cool guys", but bullies and creeps, who equate vandalism with "goofing off". Dazed and Confused is a vibrant collage of nostalgia, and a pastiche of the "good old days"--whether it is true or just the way we remember it is less important than how it made us feel.
Recommended for: Fans of a comedy/drama that is rooted in its nostalgia for a specific time and place, and audiences will be hard pressed not to identify with at least part of the film on a personal level. Like the films from which it draws inspiration--like American Graffiti--it features early roles for actors who would go on to forge more successful careers later, and boasts a rich soundtrack of period-specific rock and roll.