Dazed and Confused

Summer 1976 in a small Texan town: on the last day before the holidays, the pupils celebrate the end of term and, with it, the end of one chapter in their lives – as well as the beginning of a new one. Whilst the older year groups welcome the new arrivals with tests of courage and traditionally mean-spirited hazing, their hormones are gearing up for the big party that evening. Amidst alcohol, joints, flirting and a sense of freedom, they experience an unforgettable night of disorientation, a thirst for adventure and the desire to savour the moment. (tb)

“Dazed and Confused is undoubtedly imbued with a sense of nostalgia for the 1970s, yet never overdoes it. Linklater sketches the time and place as casually as possible and leaves the rest to all the other magnificent aspects of the film; that is precisely what makes it so timeless. The music, the cars, the conversations, the clothes and a thousand other small details reveal that the various storylines that make up the film are set in the 1970s. Yet these things do not need to be bathed in glaring neon lights for one to notice them. Linklater trusts his characters, a screenplay that feels so natural that one sometimes gets the impression the film’s outstanding cast are improvising everything on the spot, and individual stories that, when viewed in their interconnection, are magnificent.” (Gabriel Ricard, drunkmonkeys.us, Aug 2021)