Totally F***ed Up
- NOT RATED
- 1993
- 1 HR, 18 min
- JUL 2
- James Duval
- Roko Belic
- Susan Behshid
- Jenee Gill
- Gilbert Luna
- Lance May
- Alan Boyce
Gregg Araki
In his fourth and best feature, TOTALLY F***ED UP, provocative and talented independent filmmaker Gregg Araki delves into the troubled world of gay teenagers. Araki here addresses the disproportionately high suicide rate among gay teens.
Principal among six friends, two of them a solid good-humored lesbian couple (Susan Behshid, Jenee Gill), is the lonely Andy (James Duval), an appealing youth with a James Dean look and vulnerability, who doesn’t believe love exists – until he’s swept off his feet by the handsome, slightly older but vastly more experienced lan (Alan Boyce).
Meanwhile, Andy’s pals Steven (Gilbert Luna), an aspiring filmmaker, and his lover Deric (Lance May) soon experience a crisis in their relationship when Steven strays, trying to blame it on the fact that the new guy in his life just happened to have a bootleg Nine Inch Nails tape to tempt him with. Rounding out the group is easygoing skater dude Tommy (Roko Belic).
Araki effectively punctuates his story with quotes in the manner of one of his acknowledged idols, Jean- Luc Godard, and probing interviews with Steven, who’s always poking a camcorder in his friends’ faces.
$10 GENERAL ADMISSION | $5 MEMBERS & UNL STUDENTS
A delirious mix of punk nihilism and deadpan irony, the first film in Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy puts an audaciously queer spin on Jean-Luc Godard’s classic Masculin féminin. Across fifteen jagged episodes, Totally F***ed Up plunges headlong into the lives of a group of queer, disaffected Los Angeles teenagers who form a kind of makeshift family as they navigate desire and heartbreak, societal and familial rejection, and the alienation of growing up gay in an era of relentless moralizing. Both a defiantly raw anthem of outsiderhood and a furious reckoning with all-American homophobia, Araki’s answer to the 1980s teen comedy captures youthful angst with an immediacy that still bruises.
Criterion
Film Stills
Reviews
Related Films
Upcoming Events
Get the Newsletter
Get the inside scoop on upcoming films & events!
Newsletter
Newsletter Form