The Last Picture Show

After watching The Last Picture Show I was left with mixed feelings. I think it was a good and very well made film but it had quite a melancholy ending. It wasn't really depressing it just left you feeling a bit flat with life and the feeling that it's all really been done before.

The film is set in a small town in Texas where everyone knows each other. The story follows several different characters, mainly a group of teenagers who are graduating from high school. Although made in 1971, the film is set in the early 1950s. And even though society in the 70s was a lot more liberal than in the 50s I think the content of the film would still have been quite edgy and potentially shocking for the audience of the time. The film deals a lot with themes of sex and promiscuity, and there is quite a lot of nudity.

The film is very character driven, I think. There is a good mix of different characters which helps to drive the plot as well as exploring the different aspects of the central themes. There is the usual mixture of kids in their late teens: Duane, the popular hot-headed male, his quieter friend Sonny and the popular, well-off and pretty girl, Jacy. When they graduate from high school, these characters fan out and in a way, we follow their individual stories in the film even though their paths still cross. And through each of them, different issues about coming of age are dealt with. For the young man Duane, he has to battle with losing Jacy as she is fed up with him and intent on experimenting sexually with other, more fashionable youths in the surrounding towns. Duane's friend Sonny is all the while engaged in a relationship with a middle-aged woman in the town, whose husband is their former basketball coach.

Although the film was probably quite liberal and challenging for its day, I think the key themes and ideas still stand up now. That was one feeling I got when I watched it, that although this was made about 40 years ago, very little has changed really in terms of how people live their lives nowadays to what is shown in the film. For example, near the start of the film there is a scene in the classroom and shortly after, scenes of the Christmas party and it was not unlike watching an episode of The Inbetweeners. The key ideas were the same with the awkwardness of the young men around women, the jealousy of peers, the newness of alcohol, conformity of youths, the list goes on. And it just got me thinking that very little has actually changed in the present day apart from perception and a bit of technology.

Finally, I liked the soundtrack of the film. Well-known country songs can be heard throughout being played on the radios and a couple of times I thought the words in the songs were almost telling the story of the film.