Penelope Spheeris

Wasted youth classic from writer / director Penelope Spheeris who tells a brutal, stark and honest story about a group of rejected kids who live, as a kind of alternative family unit, in a condemned house on the margins of LA society. Rejected, inarticulate and unruly trouble is never far away, especially when the macho jocks of straight society decide the punks need to be taught a lesson. "Suburbia" is a great wee film that angrily expresses a loathing for traditional suburbia and its requirements for staid conformity and rampant consumerism. Penelope Spheeris' script seethes with a combination of disappointment and hopelessness and is hugely sympathetic to the punks and skins who form the core of the rejected kids depicted in the film. She avoids sentimentality, however, and the kids are presented in all their human frailty - angry, violent, inarticulate and inconsistent, which helps deliver a more rounded picture of the group. The punks are played by street kids, who are stiff and can't really act. This doesn't overly distract, however; if anything it gives an extra layer of reality and distance to the kids alienation. The film also gets the mood and look of the early '80s street punk scene just about right with performances by T.S.O.L., DI, and The Vandals adding to the verisimilitude. "Suburbia" is not a comfortable film by any means, but a very good attempt at honestly portraying the punk scene at a certain point in its early gestation.… (more)