Penelope Spheeris’s Suburbia is an incredibly compelling – if deeply flawed – film about those on the margin of society. There’s a messiness to the film, a do-it-yourself aesthetic that results in a sloppy narrative and amateurish performances. Add to those rough edges some early moments of shocking violence and gratuitous sex and nudity, and it’s easy to dismiss this sobering look at street youth as needlessly grim or exploitative. But if you allow yourself to get acclimated to the film’s technical limitations, there’s a profoundly moving and deeply tragic undercurrent that works in spite of its limitations. As rough as the performances can be, most of the young, non-professional actors actually lived some variation of this story, so there’s a genuine heft and emotional weight that helps the film rise about any of its flaws.
