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United Kingdom · 1986
Rated PG-13 · 1h 48m
Director Julien Temple
Starring Eddie O'Connell, Patsy Kensit, David Bowie, James Fox
Genre Drama, Music, Romance
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Set in 1950s London, this musical follows Colin, a young photographer and jazz aficionado. When the beautiful, career-oriented model Crepe Suzette breaks up with him, he seeks stardom and success to win her back. Meanwhile, racial tensions rise in Colin's neighborhood of Notting Hill.
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Camp is everywhere, humour thin; and the soundtrack is very contemporary for a movie which in the pre-publicity boasted of its jazz origins. The whole film is an example of the strange influence of pop promo mentality on cinema. All that noise, all that energy, so little governing thought.
The New York Times by Caryn James
Looking through these layers of time, this flashy, extravagant rock musical, which opens today at the Ziegfeld, elevates style to a symptom and cause of social change. And though it aims for more coherence than it delivers, it has endless flair with no self-importance...For all its unevenness, Absolute Beginners is high pop culture.
The paradox of this razzle-dazzle movie is that it demonstrates the triumph of the advertising ethos it attacks. Still, it's bold and undeniably different (what other musical turns a race riot into a happy ending?). Under its brassy, celebratory surface it's selling a surprisingly dour message about the waylaid dreams of the teen revolution. [5 May 1986, p.78]
A general disappointment, but then with David Bowie and Patsy Kensit what did you expect.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Wilmington
One of the most entertaining movies this year, and one of the few that shows real invention and audacity, along with big-studio technical flash. [8 June 1986, p.C27]
Washington Post by Paul Attanasio
What's left here is not so much a movie as an assault so unpleasant, it leaves you wondering what you could have done to deserve it. [27 May 1986, p.B3]
Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson
Skim the pleasantly diverting surface of Absolute Beginners and you can easily forget that there is nothing contained beneath. [18 Apr 1986, p.C6]
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