Slacker

Name: Slacker
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: July 5, 1991
Duration: 100 min
Rating: 69
Cast: Richard Linklater

1991

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 26 Ratings

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8.1	User Score Universal acclaim based on 26 Ratings

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Slacker

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Movie Details & Credits

Orion Classics | Release Date: July 5, 1991 | R

Starring: Richard Linklater

Summary: Slacker presents a day in the life in Austin, Texas among its social outcasts and misfits using a series of linear vignettes.

Director: Richard Linklater

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Rating: R

Runtime: 100 min

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Critic Reviews

Owen Gleiberman

The movie never loses its affectionate, shaggy-dog sense of America as a place in which people, by now, have almost too much freedom on their hands. Read full review

Ted Mahar

Richard Linklater's ingenious social comedy is a tour de force, at least in a minor way. [25 Oct. 1991, p.19]

Hal Hinson

Linklater's control seems all but invisible here. But this kind of stylistic lucidity can only be the result of determined calculation and planning. The kind of happy accidents he captures don't come about by accident. Read full review

Edward Guthmann

If they weren't so funny and real, and if Linklater hadn't done such a good job in writing their dialogue and casting them, their lack of ambition might seem depressing, and the movie might come off as some smug hymn to negativity. [9 Aug. 1991, p.F3]

Jay Carr

Despite a deceptively aimless surface that seems to take off from the initial character's musings on roads not taken, Slacker is more than a gallery of alienated post-collegiates spinning their wheels waiting for something to happen. [4 Oct. 1991, p.47]

Vincent Canby

The members of Mr. Linklater's cast, most of whom are non-professionals, are so amazingly effective that it's hard to believe they didn't make up their own lunacies. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Aside from preserving these folks for a presumably grateful posterity and convincingly depicting Austin as an open-air lunatic asylum, Slacker does not offer much to anyone who likes to stay awake. Read full review

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User Reviews

freeridearts

Mar 4, 2021

This is a great film. This is a great film. This is a great film. This is a great film.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

donaldist

Jul 1, 2016

80/100
Consistently fascinating and entertaining, which is a coup for a plotless film in which the primary characters change every scene. The nadir of this gimmick is early in the film, when one of the vignettes relies too much on perturbing incident rather than the meandering80/100
Consistently fascinating and entertaining, which is a coup for a plotless film in which the primary characters change every scene. The nadir of this gimmick is early in the film, when one of the vignettes relies too much on perturbing incident rather than the meandering pseudo-philosophy conversations that make up the rest of the film. Not to worry, as the film makes up for it with hilarious moments like a woman selling Madonna's Pap smear, a guy living in a room full of televisions, and an old man teaching a burglar about the merits of anarchism. And there's a kind of understated sadness to these aimless people, like the kids that steal Pepsis to sell to people, or the Kennedy-assassination theorist who immediately starts talking about Jack Ruby's dog when someone asks how he is. By the end, Slacker has turned into a sort of "portrait of a city film", in this case Dallas, Texas; one feels like they have the complete feel of the weirdest corners of a city they've been to not once.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Benkoko11

Feb 23, 2017

A meandering, hilarious, and ultimately pointless tour of Austin Texas and the lazy souls lost in it - or in other words: a pure Linklater. Raught with rants of conspiracy, anti-establishmentarianism, and existentialism, this foundational piece sets in motion the spirit that occupies hisA meandering, hilarious, and ultimately pointless tour of Austin Texas and the lazy souls lost in it - or in other words: a pure Linklater. Raught with rants of conspiracy, anti-establishmentarianism, and existentialism, this foundational piece sets in motion the spirit that occupies his entire filmography.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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