Kaboom (2010)
Reviewer: Pierre Badiola
Rated: 15 (UK)
Release Date: Out Now in Cinemas
Director: Gregg Araki
Cast: Thomas Dekker, Chris Zylka, Haley Bennett, Juno Temple, Roxane Mesquida
If you’re anything like a Gen Y-er such as myself, you’ll probably be fanatical or at least passingly familiar with the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Donnie Darko and Scooby Doo. Well that is essentially the same cauldron of teen-pop ephemera that 51 year-old(!) Gregg Araki is drawing from in Kaboom, his uneven but endearing apocalyptic follow up to 2007’s stoner comedy Smiley Face.
Essentially a mash up of sex comedy and surreal murder mystery, Kaboom tells the story of Smith (Thomas Dekker/Casey Affleck’s studly, boy-faced clone); a sexually active, 18 year old student who spends most of his time soaking in the college parties, dorm living and promiscuous sexual encounters that his new academic life affords. He also liaises with his best friend and social foil Stella (Haley Bennett), who herself has fallen into a somewhat mysterious relationship with a girl who appears to be an actual, supernatural-power-wielding Witch.
At one college party Smith runs into bubbly Anglo-accented London (Juno Temple), who proceeds to throw herself at him on account of her attraction to gay guys, although Smith isn’t willing to fence himself into any particular sexual preference. “It’s complicated” he says. “I’ll drive” she replies.
Free-wheeling attitudes towards sex and attraction is a trademark of the 'New-Queer Cinema' that Araki and his peers helped pioneer in the early ‘90s, although the sexual content here doesn’t strive towards anything too explicit or boundary-bending. Sure, Smith has an unhealthy obsession with his surfer-dude roommate who walks around naked and tries to give himself a blowjob, and he does visit a nude beach and hook up with a muscle man on one of the film’s many throwaway whims. But the plot’s sexual drive takes somewhat of a backseat to a more pressing concern: a mysterious, animal-mask wearing cult that keeps popping up on campus. Why do they keep appearing to Smith and only Smith? And what do they have to do with the dreams of apocalypse that Smith keeps on having?
The plot loads so many questions into the front-end that while it hits a good stride in the third act where Smith & co. play detective, there never ends up being enough time to answer all the mysteries in a satisfying or wholly conceivable way (although I guess you could’ve thrown conceivability out the window at around the time of the supernatural lesbian witch). A burgeoning story arc involving Smith’s adoring secret admirer Oliver (Brennan Mejia) is cut woefully short despite it’s genuine sweetness, tertiary characters drift in and out of the narrative despite their importance (or lack thereof). As such the final 10 minutes suffers from such a frenzied pile-up of explanation and loose-end tying that I wouldn’t be surprised if the REAL ending got cut for time and is bundled on the DVD as an extra. (The DVD is destined to be a cult favourite, so I’m sure fans will see it.)
There is a charm to it all though, and the damp, protracted punchline of an ending contains a lot of intentional sci-fi/B-movie camp that reminded me of late-night Nickelodeon shenanigans, or the parody episodes of Xena and Hercules. Araki gives the youth many fun, knowing winks and it’s eerie how in-tune he is with youth culture; the film references hip indie bands such as Explosions in the Sky, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Hellen Stellar. The mysterious cult is named The “New Order”. Smith is named so presumably because of the Smiths. The list goes on.
The genius of it all lies in the way it makes light of very real coming-of-age anxieties. Smith is on the verge of his 19th birthday, and his dreams about the end of the world are not so subtly tied into his transition from high-school teen to responsible young-adult. After college it might as well be the end of the world for him as it means the end of youth. Likewise, Stella’s relationship seems like a fantastical, comic projection of a naturally occurring phenomena: what if that vindictive, controlling person you dated actually WAS an evil, supernatural witch who inflicted pain on you from afar using voodoo dolls? That’s what it feels like anyway. Maybe Araki was channeling that episode of Buffy from season 3 that portrayed the evil school Principal as an actual Serpent Demon from Hell.
Sometimes titillating, always silly, never boring, Kaboom!
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