Youth
Whether you're old, young, successful, left for another woman, confused, or bored, everybody can be stuck in the same old, same old, even if you're surrounded by sharp, glistening, beautiful things. Music, writing, and acting are all desperate forms of expression, and each of these people try so hard to make sense of it through monologue and silence, introspection and cautious humor. Sorrentino understands that nothing can ever really be resolved, everything can't be connected, but it's all really fascinating to look at. The family dynamics, the memory of potential former lovers, struggling for a career long gone, it all speaks to the eternal grappling we all deal with on a daily basis. And if Fred Ballinger and Mick Boyle, who both have accomplished so much, can still feel the empty longing for what was, what's wrong with us feeling the same way? All of this is delivered so pristinely, with straight-forward, quick conversations, and shimmering pools full of both the beautiful and the damned, that it all cohesively translates into a meaningful, eclectic portrait of life at its full range.
In short, I love this thing so much. It's overflowing with truth, beauty, fantasy, and hope, and even on a third time, I'm in awe of it all.
"I have finally come to the conclusion that I have to choose, what is really worth telling? Horror or desire? And I choose desire. You, each one of you, you opened my eyes, you made me see that I should not be wasting my time on the senselessness of horror. I want to tell about your desire, my desire, so pure, so impossible, so immoral, but it doesn't matter, because that's what makes us alive."