A product of its times as well as being a statement on its times, Hi, Mom! (1970) is a free-wheeling satire of middle-class values. A young Robert De Niro plays Jon, a returned Vietnam vet in New Yorl who veers from one obsession to the next, beginning as a budding pornographer who wants to create “Peep Art” but ends up becoming a counter-revolutionary. While resembling in look and dress his role of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, De Niro is much younger here than his later collaborations with Martin Scorsese, and is looser and punchier, willing to run with the wacky scenes his character winds up in. Written and directed by Brian De Palma, the theme of voyeurism connects this film to his later forays into Hitchcockian thrillers. Yet in contrast to DePalma’s future staples (Dressed To Kill, Body Double, etc), Hi, Mom! has an episodic, sketch-based structure that keeps surprising you, especially the ‘Be Black, Baby’ sequence, which takes on confrontational theatre and white attitudes to the ‘black experience’ in a harrowing yet darkly comic style. Of the supporting cast, Charles Durning, Allen Garfield, and Jennifer Salt all make great impressions in their scenes with De Niro. An underrated cult classic. Recommended.
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