Diner

Barry Levinson's pictures always succeed in painting a nostalgic feelgood picture of a certain era. Really lovely to watch, but the downside of director Barry Levinson's pictures is the fact that they are always a bit safe. No big dramas, no experiments. Despite this characteristic "Diner" is still a very endearing and touching story.

As far as "Diner" is concerned I think that this is probably Levinson's best work, because of the excellent true to life depiction of young adult's life in the fifties. It feels as if I was right there.

The story is about a group of friends who are on the verge of losing their freedom of their youth because marriage and boring jobs are waiting for them. "Diner" is the excellent warm hearted portrait of one last brawl together with their childhood friends, before everyboby realizes they have to enter the world of the grown ups, with all the accompanying, depressing responsibilities that come along with it.

It actually is not about food - it is about how men grow up .. or do they? There is a case to be made about boys never really (or rarely) grow up to be men. And with a cast that is quite astonishing ... with themes that at least still to this day seem ageless ... while technology and other things do advance, there is a universal truth about issues most of us face while growing up.

Tough to say if in decades from now this looks like something that people can not connect anymore. Or not to the degree we think they are able to ... Back to the cast and not just Steve Guttenberg surprising me or a young Kevin Bacon (with a hint to the Friday franchise and Ketchup?), but even more so with a young rebel by the name of Mickey Rourke. I almost did not recognize him. But there are also some very fine female performers in this, the movie overall does focus on the male outlook though. Then again issues with OCD or something similar are not gender related of course ... even if it again mostly is put on the male cast here.

A good movie for anyone who likes movies about ... something or nothing in particular other than life and choices and relationships ... with some amazing performances to say the least.

"Diner" is a fun-filled, perfectly inspired comedy/drama, which is talented director Barry Levinson's first effort. Needless to say, there's no strong plot structure, but when you have solid, memorable characters like these, that's not necessary. Almost every one of these characters are memorable in their own ways. Nobody "steals the show."

The cast is highly spirited, as I sensed great joy in their performances. The chemistry between the characters is very genuine, and not surprisingly Barry Levinson made sure the actors got well-acquainted with each other before shooting.

I can tell Levinson based many of these scenarios on real-life situations. Scenes like these cannot be developed in the mind of some phony Hollywood hack screenwriter. The nostalgia practically bleeds out the screen, in his solid attention to detail. And that's one of the reasons why this film works. I can actually imagine Levinson sitting back and watching the film with a big smile, chuckling intermittently as he reminisces back to moments from his adolescence. When a director is joyful about his work, that joy transfers to his audience. One of the scenes in which that joy is most evident is when Daniel Stern's character throws a fit about his girlfriend, Ellen Barkin, wrongly categorizing his records and never asking him "what's on the flip side?" Levinson obviously has a passion for the music of his time, and rightfully so, because a lot of great music comes from the 50's. And lucky for me, the film's soundtrack is filled with many of those great tunes.

There are many memorable moments and lines of dialogue. The football quiz is definitely something to be remembered. But my favorite is the famous "roast beef sandwich" argument. Paul Reiser asks Steve Guttenberg if that's a roast beef sandwich he's eating, and Guttenberg can sense he wants a bite from the sandwich, so he yells out, "Just say it! 'I want the roast beef sandwich!'" It's a brilliant, "Seinfeld"-type scene which revolves around a banal subject, but you can't help but be delightfully amused, because let's fact it--the things we relate most to are the simple things in life. Movies about politics can be interesting, but what if you're not a politician or someone who doesn't give a damn about politics? Eating is someone everyone can relate to. Friendship is something everything can relate to. And male bonding is something all men can relate to.

If "Waiting to Exhale" best demonstrates the strength of female bonding, I feel this film best demonstrates the strength of male bonding. I used to feel that women had a stronger bond, since they're more affectionate and in touch with their feelings. But when jealousy enters the equation, even the most long-term friendship between two women can be butchered. I've actually talked to several women who feel more comfortable with male friends, and don't very much trust other women. However, guys stick together. We may badmouth each other left and right and bust each other's chops, but the bond remains the same. Some females may interpret this is as a misogynistic film, because other than Ellen Barkin's character, there are no major or supporting female characters. And Steve Guttenberg's would-be wife is never revealed--at least her face is never shown. But this is simply to stress the theme of male bonding; not to show that women aren't important.

"Diner" is a film for those who enjoy funny, moving, character-driven nostalgia films with fine actors. Hell, even Mickey Rourke, who I'm not a big fan of, gives a fine three-dimensional performance. But everyone in the cast is worth praising in equal doses: Daniel Stern, Paul Reiser (despite his brief screen time), Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, Tim Daly, Ellen Barkin.

My score: 8 (out of 10)

Recent films set in the 1950s, such as 'Pleasantville', 'Far from Heaven' and 'Mona Lisa Smile' have tended to portray the decade as being a repressed, overly conservative period. A generation ago, however, the tendency was to take a more sympathetic, nostalgic look at the fifties in films such as 'Grease' or television programmes such as 'Happy Days'. The post-Vietnam generation seemed to look back at the period immediately before that war as a lost age of innocence.

'Diner' follows a group of young men from Baltimore, former school friends now in their early twenties, over a week of their lives, that between Christmas Eve and New Year, 1959. Some of them are still living and working in the town, others are now at college, but are using the Christmas vacation as a chance to get back together with old friends. The title is taken from the diner that is their favourite meeting-place. There is no real coherent plot; the film is very episodic in structure and concentrates on character rather than on action.

As is perhaps inevitable with young men of this age, many of their preoccupations are with girls and relationships. One of them, Shrevie, is married, but seems to be discontented with married life. Another, Eddie, is engaged. A third, Billy, discovers during the course of the film that he has got his girlfriend pregnant, but when he offers to do the decent thing by her, he is disconcerted to realize that she would much rather he did the indecent one. A fourth, Boogie, seems to lead a carefree life, flitting from one romance to another. The characters are not, however, preoccupied with love and sex to the exclusion of all else. We also learn about their other private obsessions with such matters as music, sport and the cinema. Shrevie quarrels with his wife because she does not share his passion for popular music and fails to understand his complex system for cataloguing his extensive record collection. (I wonder if this scene was the origin of a similarly obsessive character in 'High Fidelity'). Eddie's passion for sport is even more all-consuming than Shrevie's for music; he subjects his fiancée Elyse to a football quiz and threatens to break off the engagement if she cannot score a sufficiently high score. A minor character knows off by heart the entire dialogue from the film 'Sweet Smell of Success'.

Many of the young actors who starred in the film have gone on to become famous names in the movie world. From my point of view the best was probably Kevin Bacon as Timothy, the rebel without a cause who has dropped out of his wealthy family and lives an aimless life. (The first time we see him he is smashing windows just for the hell of it). I was, however, also impressed by Daniel Stern as Shrevie and Mickey Rourke as Boogie.

I have never been to Baltimore, but it was clear from watching the film that the director was trying to capture the spirit of a particular place and time. It therefore came as no surprise to discover that Barry Levinson, who both wrote and directed the film, is himself a Baltimore native, although slightly younger than the characters depicted in the film. (He would have been seventeen in 1959). Despite this concentration on the particular, however, 'Diner' has a universal appeal. The film with which it has most in common is 'American Graffiti'. Although that film was actually set in the early sixties rather than the fifties, it nevertheless deals quite openly with the idea of the pre-Vietnam era as a golden age. 'Diner' does not deal with this theme so overtly, but there is still nevertheless a distinct sense of an era coming to an end. It is significantly set in the final week of a decade, and in the wedding scene we see a large banner saying 'Eddie and Elyse- in the sixties and forever', a reminder that change is on the way, both for these young men and for America as a whole.

The most important change that the characters in 'Diner' have to come to terms with is neither social nor political, but rather the challenge of growing up. The traditional 'Coming of Age' film has tended to concentrate on adolescence and the teenage years. For many young men, however, their early twenties, when they are completing or have already completed their education, are setting out on their careers and are starting to think about more serious relationships with women, can be a time of even greater changes than their days in secondary school. All the major characters- except perhaps the serious-minded Billy who is keen to accept new responsibilities- want to hang on to elements of their boyhood even while moving into adulthood.

For Boogie, and, to an even greater degree, Timothy, this means keeping the freedom to be irresponsible. For Shrevie and Eddie, this means trying to keep hold of their youthful passions even after marriage. The discord between Shrevie and his wife (slightly older than him and considerably more mature in outlook) is caused as much by his fear that marriage will mean having to give up his association with his old friends as by her inability to differentiate between jazz and rock-and-roll. Barry Levinson's claim that Elyse's football test was based on a true incident may seem improbable, but there is some psychological truth in this part of the film. It has, after all, been said that every man's ideal woman is himself incarnated in the body of a beautiful girl, and Elyse's willingness to take this test shows that she is prepared to make sacrifices and enter into Eddie's male-oriented world.

'Diner' is a film worth seeing more than once. On my first viewing I found it dull, an inferior copy of 'American Graffiti'. The second time round, I started to appreciate it as a fine film in its own right. Barry Levinson has gone on to make a number of other good films ('The Natural', 'Good Morning Vietnam', 'Rain Man' and 'Sleepers'), but 'Diner', his first film, is perhaps his most personal and heartfelt. 8/10

It's Christmas Night 1959 Baltimore. A group of friends reunite for Eddie Simmons (Steve Guttenberg)'s marriage. Shrevie (Daniel Stern) and Beth Schreiber (Ellen Barkin) are unhappily married. Boogie (Mickey Rourke) is the slick womanizer. Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) is the prankster. Modell (Paul Reiser) and Billy (Tim Daly) round out the group. Their hangout is the Hilltop Diner.

It's a very impressive cast. Everybody is terrific acting-wise. However I couldn't really get into the meandering nature of the movie. I found it hard to concentrate on any of the characters. It doesn't have the light fun of 'American Graffiti'. I would have liked a movie of them just talking in the diner about their lives.