Director: Noah Baumbach
It's always difficult to rate indies like Kicking and Screaming - I think perhaps I should do away with rating them altogether. These movies are so often piecemeal and overtalkative, but they can also emulate life in a scary way. A film chronicling four graduated college seniors trying to adjust to life outside the comforting embrace of education, Baumbach as writer/director nails all the tropes of Northeastern private colleges. The overeducated using their reasoning skills on total ephemera, the pathetic 30+ year old graduate still hanging around, the ridiculousness of campus life - it's all represented with just the right amount of absurdity. Still, the film overdoes the symbolism of its title, and it never lets us develop much sympathy for any of its characters. Much like college, Kicking and Screaming is a place that's great to spend time for a while, but there's definitely a right time to leave.
I like your review here. I remember the previews for this film and they made it look like another "Reality Bites", a movie I pretty much hate. Glad to hear that's not the case. I shouldn't be too surprised though that a movie directed by Noah Baumbach would be better than one directed by Ben Stiller, right?
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