I remember The Doom Generation (1995) was released into cinemas when I was a teenager, as a hip US indie – maybe a bit on the back of Pulp Fiction and the similarity of Rose McGowan’s Louise Brooks bob/overall look to Uma Thurman. I also recall Roger Ebert – whose reviews I read back then – giving it zero stars. I was finally watching for the first time a film credited as a “A Heterosexual Movie By Gregg Araki”, a director already known as an auteur in Queer indie cinema by that point. I assumed that the film would be a love triangle between its trio of characters, Amy (Rose McGowan) and her sweetly dim boyfriend Jordan (James Duval) and the dangerous drifter Xavier (Jonathan Schaech) they cross paths with and pick up after the accidental shotgun death of a convenience store clerk (Araki himself). There is a lot of sexual tension between Jordan and Xavier but it’s always interrupted (adding to the satirical charge of categorising it as “A Heterosexual Movie”); the on-screen sexuality is all about Jordan and Xavier having sex separately with Amy (McGowan). Then, after all of the cartoonish comic-book violence that ensues and the complete nihilism of the characters, being blase about everything, I found the film’s climax quite heavy and unexpectedly disturbing – which was definitely the point of the movie, a hammer blow after a wild crass ride. Like a cross between Heathers and Wild At Heart, The Doom Generation was very specifically 1990s in the soundtrack and its amazingly kitsch style and set design, its road movie plot, close ups of junk food, and over-top violence, and all the affected cartoonish dialogue, which kept me laughing (“If bullshit were music, you’d be a big brass band”). Duval was so sweet – it felt like he was almost like a parody of a Keanu Reeves character. To me, this is more of an iconic Rose McGowan performance/character than Jawbreaker. And all the cameos throughout the movie by musicians and celebrities – you know it’s a 1990s American Indie movie when Parker Posey shows up for five minutes to do her thing! I was only able to see the edited R-rated release (not approved by the director). Recommended.
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