Plot

Inspired by the advent of Seattle's grunge music sound and popular films such as Slacker (1991) and Singles (1992), the Generation X comedy-drama was born. Typified by characters in their early twenties sharing an abundance of education, a lack of career direction, stunted romantic aspirations and an obsession with popular culture, one of the better examples of the genre was Kicking and Screaming. Josh Hamilton stars as Grover, a recent college graduate and aspiring writer depressed over the departure of his girlfriend Jane (Olivia d'Abo) for a fellowship in Prague. Josh's best friends are in a similar predicament. Skippy (Jason Wiles) is a classic slacker couch potato still attending classes despite having graduated, while the philosophical Max (Chris Eigeman) and Otis (Carlos Jacott), a mechanical engineer, both remain unemployed. Tenth-year student Chet (Eric Stoltz), who works at a local bar and has still not finished his education, serves as a cautionary tale for the four unmotivated pals. Kicking and Screaming was the debut of writer and director Noah Baumbach and the first of several cinematic collaborations between him and actors Eigeman and Stoltz. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Review

Anyone who has ever gone through four years of college, then wished it would last for at least four more, will find themselves nodding along with Noah Baumbach's highly perceptive Kicking and Screaming. The title gets at four friends' extreme reluctance to move into adulthood, but the film is a lot less zany than the title suggests -- and thankfully, there are very few of the obnoxious stereotypes viewers have come to expect from films dealing with college social life. Instead, it's more of an intellectual cataloguing of these characters' recent experiences, which inescapably dominate their thoughts, since they still live in the town where they just attended college, still mopily haunting the bar where they made so many of the memories from which they must now divorce themselves, just because they've collected that diploma. Perhaps due to the presence of the singular Christopher Eigeman, frequent denizen of the films of Whit Stillman, Kicking and Screaming feels a bit like an homage to that director's work, if a little less maturely scripted. Each character has funny issues to resolve, and there are good performances to that end by Eric Stoltz, Parker Posey, Carlos Jacott, and Jason Wiles. But the backbone of the film is the wistful romance, recalled in flashbacks that appear in reverse chronological order, between Josh Hamilton and Olivia D'Abo. That she chose to go to Prague, forsaking a relationship with Hamilton's Grover, is already known at the outset. This makes their innocent first meeting -- seen only toward the end, with D'Abo decked out preciously in post-adolescent braces -- all the more poignant. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Cast

• Josh Hamilton - Grover
• Olivia D'Abo - Jane
• Carlos Jacott - Otis
• Christopher Eigeman - Max
• Eric Stoltz - Chet

Parker Posey - Miami; Jason Wiles - Skippy; Elliott Gould - Grover's Dad; Cara Buono - Kate; Dean Cameron - Zach; David DeLuise - Bouncer; Chris Reed - Friedrich; Perrey Reeves - Amy; Marissa Ribisi - Charlotte; Richard Tacchino - Singing Freshman #2; Sal Viscuso - Bar Teacher; Solier Fagundez - Stunt Knight #2; Jonathan Baumback; Noah Baumbach; Peter Czernin - Lester; Sam Gould - Pete; Jason S. Kassin - Freddy; Catherine Kellner - Gail; John Lehr - Louis; Eliza Roberts - Josselyn

Credit

Jason Blum - Associate Producer, Jeremy Kramer - Associate Producer, Ellie Kanner - Casting, Phillip B. Goldfine - Co-producer, Andrew Hersh - Co-producer, Mary Jane Fort - Costume Designer, Michael J. Allowitz - First Assistant Director, Noah Baumbach - Director, J. Kathleen Gibson - Editor, Carol Baum - Executive Producer, Phil Marshall - Composer (Music Score), Dan Whifler - Production Designer, Steven Bernstein - Cinematographer, Mark Amin - Producer, Sandy Gallin - Producer, Joel Castleberg - Producer, Noah Baumbach - Screenwriter, Oliver Berkman - Short Story Author

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Next:	Kicking the Dog (2008 Film), Kicks (2008 Film)