I realized that I used the word “meandering” in the last two posts I made here, which is truly a shame because I don’t think you could describe this movie without using this word, so I’m going to have to make it three in a row. 

There are multiple references to the micro budget of this movie in the other comments and I sort of feel like that’s one of the less interesting things about it? If you told me that it was made with only $23,000 I’d probably believe you; a good portion of the actors do not seem very experienced, the audio doesn’t always seem to match up, and one of the worst boom mic intrusions I’ve ever seen occurs in the middle of the movie.

Despite this it’s so easy to watch the characters loosely interact and go about their daily lives, encountering all the kooks and weirdos that they’ve already mentally internalized into their routines. Everybody we see is totally unfazed by the ramblings of a conspiracy-obsessed former classmate or a mutual friend trying to sell you Madonna’s Pap smear. They’re all mostly thinking about themselves, trying to square the increasingly complex and globalizing world with a value system, or economic structure, or creative process that will help them understand. Many of the monologues contain bits and pieces of a coherent theory before veering off into obscurity, and it takes an omniscient, easily distracted observer to try to piece them together. 

Which, of course, is why most of the characters have given up entirely on really making a difference. If you don’t have control or understanding what’s the point? A generation of Americans witnessed their president’s head explode on TV, a pointless war in Vietnam, and another president resign in disgrace during their formative years, and many of those who didn’t buy into the facade of Reaganism decided to sort of just stop trying as a result.

It really reminds me of a lot of the cynical cultural sentiment today, but it’s sort of funny because the sort of bohemianism on display here seems unattainable and almost foreign to me in 2025. I’ll admit to having never been there, but Austin’s national reputation seems to have shifted a bit from a hipster heaven to a sort of reactionary tech-aligned Mecca of influencers, edgy Rogan-adjacent comics, and crypto bros. I’m sure it’s somewhere in between those two things but it in general, feels as if the capitalization of these countercultural spaces and the proliferation of the internet has even further atomized people to the extent that “slacking” has less to do with walking, talking, and thinking out loud, and more to do with sitting alone in your room as an algorithm feeds you content. 

So much to consider within such an easy-going script, which Linklater is rightfully credited as the master of.

Watched 7/4/2025