Susan Seidelman's 1982 New York punk/weirdo heroine film SMITHEREENS

I'm assuming a fair number of you have seen it... now out on Criterion. I recall preferring it to her subsequent, slicker Desperately Seeking Susan.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5823-smithereens-breakfast-at-the-peppermint-lounge

Unaccountably a VHS of this showed up in a skrunky little rental store in my hometown sometime in the 80s. I'm 99% sure I was the only person who ever rented it, but I did so a few times and IIRC I ended up buying it for 50p when they eventually got rid.

Dimly-remembered pros: mostly very good sountrack inc pleasingly atmospheric use of first-LP Feelies; it looks great-but-cheap; fairly convincingly punk rock feel about the whole thing: for all its un-glamour it felt impossibly glamorous to me

Dimly-remembered cons: R. Hell is terrible in this, he is not exactly a charismatic screen presence.

Somewhere in-between: the plot maybe a bit thin but I am not sure that necessarily hurts the film overall, you don't pick it up thinking it'll be a tightly-plotted punk thriller.

Cool. I saw it earlier this year and really liked it. Great use of "Loveless Love" pre-Something Wild.

This was shot around when I was a college freshman in downtown NYC, so i'm sure my next viewing will be a Proustian madeleine...

Love this scrappy film, and find it especially poignant because I've absolutely known some "Wren"s in this city. On a recent viewing was struck by the element of mistiming that hangs over Wren... that feeling of, "maybe I've arrived in NYC too late... the punk scene seems to be over, transplanted to LA." Just funny to think that that idea, the demise of the East Village or whatever, was current as far back as '81//'82. But as Seidelman says, that character will keep bouncing back somehow.

oh yeah, i definitely remember feeling in '80-81 that i'd missed the whole thing...

and re Richard Hell's acting, I think his affect here has a fair extent to do with the blasé hipster stud that he is playing

So apparently shooting on this film started around mid-1980 but was interrupted for six months when Susan Berman broke her leg improvising on set

I think that’s true about Hell’s approach but my memory is he’s nowhere near a convincing hipster stud, more of a mumbling nonentity.

Bear in mind I last watched this 30 years ago!

Just rewatched this over the weekend, hadn't seen it since college. I really liked it. The script and acting are variable, but overall it's pretty effective and affecting. Wren somehow stays sympathetic despite routinely screwing up everything and treating other people strictly as resources to be exploited. I guess because she ultimately hurts herself more than anyone else, you keep rooting for her. Love the use of the Feelies songs. This movie was definitely part of my long-distance fetishization of NYC in the '80s, even though objectively it doesn't make the city look like any fun at all.

Stumbled upon this piece by coincidence. Probably doesn't add anything new to those who've seen the film but I enjoyed it, plus it allowed me to see the scene that uses "Loveless Love" in its entirety