The Young Unknowns (2000/2003)
Perhaps this film would have been
called "Hollow Man" if that particular title hadn't
been co-opted by a sci-fi film starring Kevin Bacon
a couple of years ago. For the protagonist here, a
aimless and wasted young man named Charlie and played
by Devon Gummersall, seems to have nothing inside
of him, nothing worthwhile anyway.
His life is simply fucked-up. Like
much of today's wealthy and spoiled youth, he aspires
to work in the entertainment industry but really has
neither the talent or the work ethic to do so. His
father is a commercial director and his mother, who
"fucked it all up" and left him when he was 12, is
a waste case unworthy of his forgiveness. "Now she
must be punished," he tells his girlfriend. It is
no accident that we see neither parent during the
film. Charlie has been left alone and is adrift in
a world that seems to care little about him. And,
truth be told, he doesn't have a clue about what to
do, let alone how to do it.
Over a night of aimless, boring,
wasted time, Charlie and his girlfriend, his best
male friend, and a drugged-out model expose us to
an existence so vapid and devoid of anything resembling
humanity that it is almost unbearable viewing.
We spend much time, in the early
stages of the film, watching Charlie and his skinny-ass
girlfriend (imagine Isabella Rossellini as a young
heroin chic model) engaging in verbal and physical
give-and-take that is troubling and depressing. The
script, written by director Catherine Jelski, is quite
adept at skirting around these two characters and
showing us the surface of their inabilities to relate
to one and other without ever blowing the situation
wide open. Perhaps it is because these two people
really have no idea how to treat a member of the opposite
sex that their relationship is as absurd and vapid
as the rest of their measly existences. The film here
reminds one of some sort of post-millennium "Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf" tinged in Mamet and put
in the blender of MTV accelerated youth culture. The
result is a dark, bruised mish-mash of vacuous nothingness
that seems constantly in danger of imploding upon
itself. The perfunctory, poser, blandness of the lives
we are seeing here are so shallow and so vapid that
they remind us that MTV culture, with no other personal
experience to juxtapose itself against, is, in fact,
no culture at all.
Gummersall is simply awesome here.
This is a career making performance. With only the
smallest hint of the sweet young man he played so
wonderfully on TV's "My So-called Life," Gummersall
provides a Hollywood kid that seems to mirror Brad
Renfro almost to a tee. It's as if the spirit of every
nameless and pathetic Hollywood kid he ever met invaded
his body and gave roost to the most apathetic and
shallow character imaginable. Gummersall's Charlie
is fuel by the anger he feels as a child orphaned
by parents who just aren't there and his own inability
to cope with reality - and seemingly nothing more.
But Gummersall, with puppy-dog eyes sloppily masked
by the false bravado of wigger culture, gives the
character so many levels it is almost impossible to
imagine what he might do next. He is much more than
simply pure anger or pure angst or simple despair.
In almost every scene, Gummersall
is supported by one or more of three the amazing young
actors who share billing here. Arly Jover provides
the perfect female counterpart of Gummersall's male
bullshit bravado. Both heartfelt and yet as fucked
up as Gummersall's Charlie, the character she plays
might come across as victim or idiot in another, less
talented, actress' hands. Jover makes it easier for
us to understand why she stays and puts up with Charlie's
stereotypical male dominance and argumentative nature
with a simple shrug of her shoulders or batting of
her shadowy, elongated eyelashes. Eion Bailey ("Band
of Brothers"), meanwhile, provides a less self-conscious,
more ignorant version of Charlie. He's the idiot that
Charlie could be if he didn't have that one iota of
cognizance. And then there's Leslie Bibb ("Popular"/"ER")
who provides the victim that Jover's Paloma is just
a tad bit too smart to become. When Paloma leaves
the scene late in the film, Bibb is left with no one
to protect her or guide her. Just as Gummersall could
be Bailey if he were only slightly less sentient,
Jover could be Bibb by the same account. This foursome
of characters provides ample chemistry and psychological
twist to keep the film on its toes.
Jelski does a decent job here even
if her cinematic choices are a bit questionable at
times. Evoking many influences in dialogue, from Edward
Albee to Mamet to David Rabe to Bret Easton Ellis,
Jelski's script twists the story up in knots and doesn't
allow the audience to get too comfortable before sticking
us with a new question or troublesome situation. Delving
into the psychological games the main characters are
playing, so that we can figure them out, keeps us
quite intrigued by what goes on a what is said here.
But Jelski can too often rely on
the dialogue to propel the film. Don't get me wrong,
the dialogue and story here is awesome, but this is
a film, not a play. The first hour of the piece is
quite claustrophobic, taking place at the same locale,
and we get to feeling the staging of the work. (It
is based on a play by Wolfgang Bauer). It takes her
far too long to take the film out on the street and
out into the open air and the cramped settings begin
to wear on us as much as it does the characters and
the story.
Jelski also doesn't do very much
of interest with the camera or the cinematography.
The film is as bland and uninteresting to look at
as the character's lives that it portrays for much
of the film. There are a few cool shots here and there
but not as many as there should be.
Wrapping up with a scene as troubling
and pointed as the rape scene in Kubrick's "Clockwork
Orange," "The Young Unknowns" is quite a disturbing
film. It's too bad that the powers- that-be, including
whoever entitled the film, are trying to sell it as
a film about Hollywood kids without conscious running
amuck. That is only a sliver of what goes on here.
The film isn't about some sort of post-millennium
brat pack, as the title seems to imply, raping and
pillaging in the Hollywood hills. Instead the film
really focuses only on one character, even if the
three others in the film also work in the entertainment
industry, or want to.
This is the most disturbing commentary
on wealthy, white, suburban youth culture imploding
in upon itself that you will likely see on a film
screen. Discounting Larry Clark, of course.
Notes:
Score and some pop music by Hypnogaja.
For a while, in the early scenes, there was almost
no score music and it became more predominant as the
film progressed. Much of the time the music seemed
to be Fassbinderian, in that it was playing in a scene
on a radio or CD rather than typical "score."
Filmed prior to 2000, the film was
first screened at a film festival, SXSW in Austin,
in March of 2000. It was picked up for distribution
in 2002 but is not scheduled to be shown in limited
release until February of 2003.
Viewed on a VHS tape provided by
the Distributor in December of 2002.
