There was a ten or so minute interlude about half-way through that worked - some interesting and realistic interaction between the young protagonist and the girl he's getting to know - discussing Bowie lyrics, dressing up, spreading out on the luxurious white carpet and culminating in a wonderful Bryan Ferry and backing vocalist impersonation double act. Unfortunately everything that goes before and comes afterwards is generally dull and unconvincing, verging at times on the preposterous. Some of the dialogue is cringe-making and the tendency to turn on the formulaic swirling mushy musical score to buy some emotional involvement at the slightest hint of a poignant moment had the opposite of the intended effect. Most of the period detail is good but there are also mistakes. The following did not exist here in Britain in the early 70s when the youthful episodes occurred: the kind of door that camouflages a fridge as a cupboard, the one-fingered rather than two-fingered insulting salute, and calling someone a loser. For a film of this kind - about human relationships or the lack of them - the dialogue is very poor indeed - neither witty, authentic or insightful, although the scriptwriter presumably thought it was all three. The central incident in which a mother's lustful pursuit of the teenage protagonist has a tragic outcome is an absurd contrivance and is absurdly milked with the aforementioned loathsome music for pathos that isn't there. By the end all semblance of credibility is lost - instead of coming home the wayward actor seems to have wandered into the valley of the dolls, such is the unnatural knockout beauty that all the women seem to have attained during his prolonged absence, and yet the screenplay achieves the singular feat at this point of being more boring than a random unedited slice of an average person's daily life. Still, the nice scenery and intermittent good moments, mainly that scene in the middle, were enough to make the whole thing just about bearable overall.
Review of Flashbacks of a Fool
