This is not how the 80s were supposed to be.

Smithereens (1982) tells the story of Wren, a runaway from New Jersey who’s hoping to make a break in the punk scene in New York City who spends her time posting self-promotional posters throughout the city. Wearing bright clothes and going in and out of clubs like she owns them, she wants nothing more than to make her big break, no matter what. As the story goes on, she becomes embroiled in a love triangle that reveals more about who she is at her core than what she wants in life.

I got interested in the No Wave movement in NYC through a book by Adele Bertei called No New York, which listed this film as one of the main cinematic products of the musical movement. Punk NYC in the late 70s and early 80s has been described as a wasteland. Artists were embroiled in poverty, people were looking for something to give meaning to their lives, and everybody wanted to be part of a community where people were seemingly dying every day. It was both a revolutionary time for the arts as well as a post-apocalyptic one for everyone involved.

Smithereens fits this movement to a T. Wren is certainly driven, but she’s not going through life with a goal in mind. She’s mostly looking for a band to take her own as a groupie, with Eric from the one-hit wonder band Smithereens being a possible option. Paul from Montana also seems like an option, and possibly a more emotional grounded one. Unlike the slimy fame-obsessed Eric, Paul is on a road trip, and content with living in his van if it means he can explore the country. Eric and Paul ultimately resemble two different types of countercultures, with Eric being the former rebel turned sell-out and Paul harkening back to the 1960s Easy Rider days, where all that mattered was the journey and not the destination.

But reducing this film to a simple love triangle would be doing the story a disservice. The no-budget filmmaking Susan Seidelman employs is perfect for the narrative the film is emulating. Instead of using flashy filmmaking techniques and melodramatic storytelling beats, Seidelman lets the griminess of early-80s NYC and Wren’s narcissism out in the open. The streets are unforgiving–Wren’s landlord evicts her and throws her stuff out of the apartment, a local pimp tries to buy Paul’s van, and the lingering scent of prostitution lingers over the film. It’s not quite Taxi Driver, though. Like Scorsese’s film, Wren is a mercurial spirit, but her continually grasping at straws reveals a sense of desperation. She might have a goal, but it’s far-fetched and far beyond her capabilities. She can try all she wants to make it, but given the changing punk environment, it’s hard she’ll ever come to it.

I found the disillusionment very intriguing. Some weird part of me kept hoping for Wren to make it, to make her peace with Paul and to go up to New Hampshire with him. But I also understand where she’s coming from. The romanticization of a starving artist is not just reckless–it’s seductive. No matter how hard the poverty hits, there’s always the devil on your shoulder saying “You’re almost there. Just meet with this guy. You’ll make it.” Yet at the end of the day, Wren is a constant alienator. She treats everyone around her as a means to an end, a pathway to greener pastures. It’s ironic that for someone so interested in punk, a movement guided partly by anticapitalism, that she treats everyone around her like a commodity. Which is also how many great punk bands met their end–by selling out.

There’s a lot of female characters in the film who don’t have a lot of dialogue or presence, but they remain like haunted spectres of a movement that used to have a place for them. A prostitute propositions Paul, but he refuses, and they share a quiet meal together. Eric’s girlfriend is introduced screaming at him from a taxi, but she still lingers in his apartment, even as Wren burns a photo of her. Seidelman doesn’t write these women off as accessories. If anything, she makes them more prominent by making them be victims of something they once believed in.

It’s crazy that Susan Seidelman followed Smithereens with the big-budget Desperately Seeking Susan, but given what she was able to do with this film, I’d say she deserved it. Sometimes the barren streets of New York are the most beautiful things to exist.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• The Feelies killed it with this soundtrack. Post-punk guitar riffs just scratch an itch.
• Aesthetically, Paul’s van is awesome. But that’s also about it.
• The fact that a man named Richard Hell plays Eric is just so perfect to me. Because yeah, Eric deserves to belong in hell.