Singles Movie Review

Singles (1992)

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Written by: Cameron Crowe
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, Sheila Kelley, Jim True-Frost, Bill Pullman, Matt Dillon
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
A group of young adults in their twenties, who share an apartment building in the city of Seattle, ponder on love and face all the challenges of adulthood.

Verdict
It's a movie that taps into a nostalgia for a life that never was. This depicts that time where you're not a child, but you don't believe you're an adult. Your entire life is ahead of you, and you worry you need to figure it out soon. The first step is getting an apartment with the movie focusing on relationships; the ups, downs, and finding someone that's right. Few of us lived a life like this, but we can identify with the feelings and desires of these characters. It's a life we'd like to have lived or one that many of us tell others we had; that imagining of this idyllic time period.
Watch It.

Review
The title is a reference to the sign at the apartment complex, "Singles" available. The characters are single and looking, they don't need a couples apartment.

This is a mood movie. It doesn't really have a plot, we're just following a group of twenty-somethings as they try to figure out life. All of them are looking for a partner. I don't know if that's intentional or just a sign of the times. Even until recently it seems the steps in life are go to college and then get married. These characters are following that same preordained path.

Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick play Steve, Linda

Linda (Kyra Sedgwick) finally meets someone, a guy on a student Visa. She imagines the possibilities of a relationship before reality crushes those ideas. She sees him at a bar with another woman. Soon she meets Steve (Campbell Scott), and they do the dance of what you should do while not appearing over eager yet not disinterested.

Janet (Bridget Fonda) is twenty-three and realizes that bizarre will soon seem immature. She only has a couple of years before she's an adult. She's trying to be what musician Cliff (Matt Dillon) wants, but she can't see that he doesn't care. She thinks they're dating. He doesn't. Thankfully she comes to that realization before nearly taking a huge plunge.

Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon play Janet, Cliff

These characters are on their own for the first time, on the cusp of a life that seems so big with so much potential. They're functioning adults, wading through that space between childhood and adulthood. As Crowe stated, this is his love letter to Seattle, with plenty of grunge music. It captures that moment in your twenties where you wonder about your future and finding the person with whom you'll spend the rest of your life. It's slightly realistic with a big dose of fantasy.

Steve and Linda agree to be friends, though he was too afraid to admit how he really felt. Later that night he relents and calls her, professing how much he cares. He tells her he'll never call her again, but he hopes she'll call back. Her machine eats the tape and she never hears it. We assume she would have reciprocated, but all he knows is that she rejected him.

This is a movie about nostalgia for the way things never were. In that regard, it reminds me of Can't Hardly Wait (1998), a movie about a huge high school party. Both movies imagine a past most of us wish we had.