High school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating a local beauty, while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife. As graduation nears and both boys contemplate their futures. Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business. Each struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.
Director Peter Bogdanovich has seen Anarene, Texas, in the cinematic terms of 1951 -- the langorous dissolves, the strong chiaroscuro, the dialogue that starts with bickering and ends at confessional.
– Stefan Kanfer,
TIME Magazine,
27 Apr 2009
fresh:
It's meant to make you feel sad for what's lost, but a vitality throbs through it.
– Joshua Rothkopf,
Time Out New York,
27 Sep 2011
fresh:
The scene where Sam imparts his wisdom to young buck Bottoms may be the saddest, loveliest moment in 1970s American cinema. And that's saying something.
– Tom Huddleston,
Time Out,
2 Mar 2015
fresh:
It's plain and uncondescending in its re-creation of what it means to be a high-school athlete, of what a country dance hall is like, of the necking in cars and movie houses, and of the desolation that follows high-school graduation.
– Pauline Kael,
New Yorker,
2 Mar 2015
fresh:
At first glance, the movie is a faithful and skillful adaptation of the source, but a second look at both the film and the book reveals some interesting divergences.