‘I’ve had a total re-calibration of my mind…’
Slacker has been a big miss for me over the years. Not only is it a ’90s cult classic, very much like myself, but it was also a huge influence on one Kevin Smith. It was Slacker that inspired the epiphany that led indirectly to Clerks. A movie can just be people talking. It can look like shit. There doesn’t have to be rules.
I first attempted to experience Slacker about a decade ago when I bought a second hand copy of it on DVD from CEX. It was a time of bad haircuts. It was a time of acronyms. And ultimately, it was a time of me not being able to read properly. When I got the damn thing home and popped it in the Playstation, I realised that I hadn’t purchased seminal ’90s comedy Slacker, but instead I found myself watching the forgettable ’00s Devon Sawa vehicle Slackers. A film that I will say I did enjoy. Anyway, due to reasons very much within my control (laziness, alcohol consumption), it has taken a decade for me to rectify this mistake.
I often get all meta in the traditional ‘plot’ paragraph and make some pithy comment about how the film I’m reviewing doesn’t really have a plot so there is nothing for me to describe. Well. Slacker genuinely doesn’t have a plot. That isn’t me being a smart ass, it just doesn’t. Instead we spend a day in the life of the coffee shops, bookstores and bars of Austin, Texas – eavesdropping on a variety of conversations ranging from pop culture to the assassination of JFK.
The true mastery of director Richard Linklater’s debut feature is that it is almost akin to voyeurism. This doesn’t feel like watching a movie. Instead, it evokes a stroll through downtown Austin, picking up snatches of conversation here and there. Linklater would refine this approach and make it a little more cinematic in later movies Dazed and Confused and Boyhood, but he would never again capture this level of authenticity.
All that being said, while there is no denying Slacker‘s influence, or its cultural importance, it also feels a little old hat now. The consequence of being first is that so many other directors will eventually surpass you. It isn’t as good as Clerks. It isn’t even as good as Linklater’s later work. It is however a film that acts as a time capsule for a simpler time, and for that alone, Slacker is worth watching. A cult film that still retains its original enigmatic mystique. Far out.