GREGG ARAKI

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBB. 

USA/France, 2010.  Desperate Pictures, Wild Bunch, Super Crispy Entertainment, The Next World.  Screenplay by Gregg Araki.  Cinematography by Sandra Valde-Hansen.  Produced by Gregg Araki, Pascal Cauchetaux, Andrea Sperling. Music by Robin Guthrie, Vivek Maddala, Mark Peters, Ulrich Schnauss.  Production Design by Todd Fjelsted.  Costume Design by Trayce Gigi Field.  Film Editing by Gregg Araki.  

Renegade filmmaker Gregg Araki returns to rebellion with this fluffy but surprisingly easy to watch, no-holds-barred comedy. Thomas Dekker plays a college student who has a crush on his straight surfer dude roommate and spends his time hanging with his best friend, who is herself in love with a foreign exchange student (Roxane Mesquida). One night while walking back to his dorm, Dekker witnesses a murder, or so he thinks; was a girl actually killed, or was the sight of men in animal masks a hallucination? Pretty soon he’s wrapped up in a conspiracy theory that implicates his suspiciously sexy mother (Kelly Lynch), his long-dead father and his circle of friends. Not content with just focusing on the burgeoning sexuality of young people, Araki takes a story of early adulthood angst and laces it with science-fiction, but it’s not nearly as messy or unbearable as Nowhere or Doom Generation. The sexuality is genuinely sexy here, and the attitude of whimsical fun is affecting and pleasant.

Toronto International Film Festival:  2010