Diner

Diner

TCM is airing a pair of movies within a few hours of each other that both happen to be on my DVR and that I haven't blogged about before. (It's just a coincidence; as far as I can tell the two aren't part of any programming theme.) So I'm posting about one of them more than a day in advance. That one is Diner, which is on at 5:00 AM on April 30.

The movie opens in Baltimore on Christmas Day, 1959. A bunch of 20-somethings are at a dance that looks as though it could be in their old high school. Among them is Timothy Fenwick (Kevin Bacon), who is down in the basement smashing windows for what seems like no good reason. In fact, he's the son in a family where the father has a pretty good family business going, but Timothy for some reason or nother doesn't want to go into that business. He doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life at all.

Then again, none of the other main characters seems to want to know either. Billy (Tim Daly) is the smart one, having gone to college and now going to law school. But he's taken his old girlfriend, a production assistant at the local TV station up to New York one weekend a few months back and now she's worried she might be pregnant, and what that's going to mean for the both of them if in fact she is pregnant. She doesn't want to quit her job to become a mother and housewife, while Billy can't really support her yet with another semester of law school and the bar exam to come.

Another friend, Shrevie (Daniel Stern), is already married, to Beth (Ellen Barkin), and has found that marriage is quite a bit of work. That, and it takes him away from his friends, not being able to spend as much time with them at the diner that was their old hangout when they were in high school and the first few years after.

Trying to make a go out of life as a hairdresser of all things, but having gotten into trouble over sports betting, is Boogie (Mickey Rourke). He's probably not a bad person, and was also a boyfriend of Beth's before she got involved with Shrevie. But like Fenwick, he doesn't really know what to do; he's just a bit less violent about it.

Finally, there's Eddie (Steve Guttenberg). He's engaged, but isn't certain whether he's ready for marriage. So he decides on something that would really just be an excuse to get out of marriage if that's what he wants. He's really into football, specifically hometown team the Baltimore Colts (before they moved to Indianapolis). He wants a wife who can be just as into football, so he comes up with a quiz on football that it seems like nobody, not even fairly big fans of the sport, could pass. But his girlfriend Elyse (never actually seen) goes along with him and takes the test.

In many ways there's not a whole lot going on in Diner, and the story lines don't always have resolutions, never mind neat resolutions. Critics loved the movie and called it timeless, comparing it to American Graffiti. I'm not so sure I'd give it such a high review, as I'd call it a bit meandering and plotless, with characters it's hard to sympathize with. Some reviewers, however, have also added that it probably takes multiple viewings to really appreciate all that's going on here. I also have a bit of an issue in that I'm neither a baby boomer nor the sort of person who would have been contemporary with the people presented here, the generation old enough to have childhood memories of World War II, but not old enough to have fought in it.

Director Barry Levinson, a native of Baltimore, clearly loved the city where he grew up, something that shows in the film. And a lot of people really do love Diner. So it's something you're definitely going to want to watch for yourself and come to your own conclusion on.