Smithereens

Director: Susan Seidelman, Susan Seidelman, Susan Seidelman

1982 / 89min / DCP

Wren wants to be famous. Or at least she wants to be recognized. She tours the Lower East Side in torn fishnets and a plastic houndstooth miniskirt, jumping turnstiles and wheat-pasting up her own “Missing” posters. Susan Berman plays her like the pissed-off older sister of Molly Ringwald, and Smithereens has the feel of a fallen John Hughes movie: Beefaroni, Pac Man, and youthful angst in a hustler’s world. Seidelman’s downtown feels at once stylized and (thanks to the 16mm cinematography) documentary-real; the ubiquitous presence of sex workers lends an ominous undertone to Wren’s desperation to keep a toehold in Manhattan. With Richard Hell, Cookie Mueller, and a score by The Feelies.