The Low Life

This is a reprint of the Austin Chronicle review that ran in March when this film premiered in Austin at the SXSW Film Festival. /// Like hamsters on a treadmill, the twentysomethings in The Low Life are on the road to nowhere -- all Generation-X clichés aside, reality does indeed bite. Overeducated and underpaid, their expectations exceed their achievements, although the situation in which they find themselves is the result of their own romanticized self-absorption, to some degree. As annoying as they may be, however, they're infinitely more believable than their counterparts on Friends. Still, there's something beguiling about The Low Life. Perhaps it's the presence of Cochrane as the stoic John Martin, and aspiring writer, who keeps an emotional distance from everyone around him in an attempt to avoid acknowledging the hole he's in. (Strangely enough, the movie never sheds light on what it is exactly that John is writing.) Cochrane, who masterfully played the stoner in Dazed and Confused, gives a controlled, introverted performance, often maddeningly low-key, that suggests a subtle something brewing just below the surface. The movie is also the first narrative feature by George Hickenlooper, who previously co-directed Hearts of Darkness, the fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now. Although the screenplay ultimately resorts to a couple of contrived melodramatic turns to bring John to a catharsis (the ending is reminiscent of that in the Saul Bellow novella Seize the Day), the character's release is nonetheless genuine, if too brief. This third act is a little rough around the edges -- like the rest of the movie -- but it nevertheless humanizes what might be called the new Lost Generation.