Themes: Sexual Awakening, Interracial/Cross-Cultural Romance, Generation Gap
Main Cast: James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton, Guillermo Diaz, Chiara Mastroianni, Jeremy Jordan, Debi Mazar
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 82 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Described by director Gregg Araki as "A Beverly Hills 90210 episode on acid" (with no suggestions of what it might be cut with), Nowhere is a companion piece with Araki's previous meditations on youth gone wild in the 1990s, Totally F***ed Up and The Doom Generation -- Araki's self-described "teen apocalypse trilogy." Nowhere follows 18-year-old Dark Smith (James Duval) as he goes through a fairly typical day in Los Angeles. Dark needs, but rarely gets, emotional support from his girlfriend Mel (Rachel True). Mel, however, is also involved with a girl named Lucifer (Kathleen Robertson), while Dark moons over hunky Montgomery (Nathan Bexton). Dark's best friend Cowboy (Guillermo Diaz) has troubles of his own, as his boyfriend and bandmate Bart (Jeremy Jordan) is back on drugs and spending most of his time with his dealer. Mel's friends include sugar junkie Dingbat (Christina Applegate), doomsday poetess Alyssa (Jordan Ladd), and Egg (Sarah Lassez), who is being unexpectedly wooed by a Famous Teen Idol (Jason Simmons). Egg's brother Ducky (Scott Caan) has a crush on Alyssa, but she's keeping company with a biker named Elvis (Thyme Lewis). Alyssa's assignation with Elvis gets a psychic boost by her twin brother Shad (Ryan Phillippe) and his tryst with Lilith (Heather Graham). The day continues on a roller coaster of kinky sex, hallucinogenic drugs, random violence, romantic misunderstandings, alien abductions, and (of course) a wild party, this time at the home of noted hipster Jujyfruit (Gibby Haynes). Like The Doom Generation, Nowhere features a wealth of pop culture icons in cameo appearances, including John Ritter, Traci Lords, Charlotte Rae, Eve Plumb, and Shannen Doherty. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The content, tone, and overall worth of 1997's Nowhere -- the glossiest and final installment in director Gregg Araki's "teen apocalypse trilogy" -- falls somewhere between the lurid existential thrills of 1995's Doom Generation and the self-indulgent neo-documentary soap opera of 1993's Totally F***ed Up. The world of Nowhere is as day-glo brilliant as that of Doom Generation, but it's also typically squalid and painful underneath the neon. Casual viewers will enjoy the numerous starlets and icons who populate Araki's L.A., from Ryan Phillippe, Christina Applegate, and Mena Suvari to a bevy of sitcom survivors, hipster footnotes, and former porn stars. But for those who take Araki seriously in spite of, or because of, his postmodern gamesmanship, Nowhere is closer in emotional weight to David Lynch's Lost Highway than to an Aaron Spelling soap or a Hollywood teen sex comedy. As in his earlier films, Araki infests his characters with vacuous youthfulness and glamorous angst, then does terrible things to them once he's convinced viewers to somehow care. The cast this time is so cluttered, however, that it's up to a few performers with emotional depth, such as Guillermo Diaz and Sarah Lassez, to lend gravity to the proceedings. Nowhere is the first installment in the trilogy in which the character played by Araki's muse, James Duval, doesn't suffer a pointless and hideous death, but that doesn't mean the director doesn't masochistically torture his spiritual stand-in. The terrific love quadrangle between the characters played by the bewildered Duval, the wickedly right-on Rachel True, the soulfully stammering Nathan Bexton, and the deliciously tart Kathleen Robertson is a perfect snapshot of Araki's polymorphously perverse, pervasively nihilistic worldview. And when Duval ends up alone at the film's end, covered for once in somebody else's blood, adherents of Araki's attention-deficit philosophizing will find the scene as devastating as any straightforward tragedy. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Rick Montgomery - Casting, Dan Parada - Casting, Mary Margiotta - Casting, Karen Margiotta - Casting, Sara Jane Slotnick - Costume Designer, Michael J. Moore - First Assistant Director, Gregg Araki - Director, Gregg Araki - Editor, Patti Podesta - Production Designer, Arturo Smith - Cinematographer, Gregg Araki - Producer, Andrea Sperling - Producer, Gregg Araki - Screenwriter, Curve - Featured Music, Lush - Featured Music
The film is part of a series of three films by Araki nicknamed the "Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy" by its fans. It is highly sexual and contains scenes of graphic violence. The film is notable in that it features a variety of actors who had, at the time, not yet reached their current level of stardom. Among them are Heather Graham, Ryan Phillippe, Mena Suvari, Kathleen Robertson, and Denise Richards.
Dark Smith (James Duval) is an alienated, 18-year-old man struggling with daily life, fluctuating romantic status with his bisexual, polyamorous girlfriend Mel (Rachel True) and conflicting feelings for a classmate, Montgomery (Nathan Bexton). The day starts off normally enough with Dark meeting up with his friends which include the intelligent Dingbat (Christina Applegate), Montgomery, Mel and her purple-haired, acid-tongued lover Lucifer (Kathleen Robertson) for breakfast at their local coffeehouse hangout, The Hole. Various mentions of a party at Jujyfruit's along with plans for a drug-fueled game of kick the can are made and the film segues into portions of the goings-on of the lives of the other characters in the film.
Cowboy (Guillermo Díaz) is another one of Dark's best friends; he is a gay rock musician struggling with balancing his band duties and his bandmate/boyfriend Bart (Jeremy Jordan), who is heavily addicted to drugs supplied by Handjob.
Egg (Sarah Lassez) is a young girl who becomes starstruck, resulting in an inadvertent meeting with a heartthrob television star (Jaason Simmons) who winds up being more than she had planned for.
Shad (Ryan Phillippe) and Lilith (Heather Graham) are a nihilistic couple, crazed with sex and lust for life, and their segments are little more than clips that serve to illustrate this. Shad is Alyssa's twin brother.
Alyssa (Jordan Ladd) and Elvis are another couple touched on only briefly. In contrast to her brother's rather indicatively violent nature Alyssa is more demure, coquettish, and sweet. Her boyfriend Elvis (Thyme Lewis), a biker, is apparently flaky in his romantic commitment to Alyssa. Elvis has a sadomasochistic streak and as is exhibited towards the end of the film, capable of extreme violence.
Zero, Mel's younger brother, and Zoe (played by Mena Suvari in her first film role) are high schoolers, implied through dialogue to be sexually active though underage. Zero wants to impress Zoe by taking her to Jujyfruit's party but has some difficulty, in addition to further difficulties that arise in regard to arriving at the party.
Cowboy's boyfriend Bart's interaction with his drug dealer Handjob and his two S&M mistresses, Kriss & Kozy, who mutilate Bart despite his extreme state of drug intoxication.
Dingbat's airheaded social butterfly role coupled with her crush on Ducky (Scott Caan) makes her a major supporting character and keeps her involved throughout the story. She's friends with Ducky's sister Egg and she, along with Egg and Alyssa, have eating disorders (Binging and purging, anorexia, and drug-induced appetite suppression).
As all of these plot lines develop, the story progresses towards the oft-mentioned party at Jujyfruit's house. A bacchanalian orgy of excess, drinking, drugs, and friends, strangers, nobodies and somebodies, all pushed together and put under pressure. Here the film descends from the innocuous and normal beginning with natural lighting and balanced visuals to sharply contrasted and/or colored lighting, and seemingly hallucinatory visions and surrealistic visuals and events as well as chaotic and/or subjectively improbable happenings and reaches its chaotic and penultimate finale where some of the issues in the plot come to a head. Dark and Mel argue about her desire to have an open relationship and Dark's desire for commitment. Zero and Zoe are ambushed by the Atari Gang (electronica group Atari Teenage Riot) on their way to Jujyfruit's house and their car, belonging to Zero's mother, is stolen while they are left helpless on the side of the road. Egg and Bart, separately watching the same televangelist (John Ritter), both decide the world is too messed up to live in and they commit suicide to reach heaven. Ducky receives word of his sister's death and attempts to drown himself in a swimming pool, but is saved by Dark and Dingbat. Bart's drug dealer Handjob is beaten to death by Elvis for selling them cut drugs, and Dark, covered in blood from his proximity to it, returns home, where Montgomery, escaped from the aliens that had abducted him during the game of kick the can, comes to Dark's window and asks if he can come in.
In a brief, emotional moment, Dark and Montgomery confess to their mutual attraction, and it seems the day won't have been a total waste. However, Dark's happiness is short-lived, as an alien parasite living inside Montgomery bursts out, says "I'm Out!" in a non-challant way and leaves through the window.
Availability
USA: Available in VHS format. There has never been a Region 1 DVD available.
UK: a Region 2DVD exists; it has no special features.
France: Region 2 DVD, with either French audio or original audio with French subtitles (depending on the DVD player, it can be difficult to turn the subtitles off). It has no special features except for a French trailer.
