1995, US, directed by Noah Baumbach
There's also that Fitzgeraldian worry that everything post-college will "savour of anti-climax", given the way that the college experience has been framed. Although the film meanders a little in the first twenty minutes before finding its bearings, writer-director Noah Baumbach displays a sure touch with dialogue from the first scene (though there's a mannered air to some of the lines, there's also a warm humour on display). The film acknowledges its own indulgence in triviality in amusing ways, and in between the catty exchanges there's a slow, almost imperceptible accretion of more meaningful commentary on a particular post-80's, pre-Internet generation. Although the performances are uniformly fine (and generally quite brilliantly deadpan), Olivia d'Abo is especially notable: she's never been lovelier, or better, at least on the big screen, and there's a sweet poignancy in her final scene that perhaps defines the overused descriptive 'bittersweet'.
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