This film boasts an outstanding cast with Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and, Cybill Shepherd doing most of the heavy lifting in addition to several actors in supporting roles who do equally well. It's set in a small Texas town where teens coming of age have little to do and questionable desire to do, well, much of anything at all beyond living, having sex, and getting out of high school.
I should note some of those supporting roles. Randy Quaid, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, and Sam Bottoms are among those who bring color the story.
Now, for a few criticisms: Bottoms, Bridges and Shepherd as high school age (granted they were fairly close by Hollywood standards at 20, 22, and 21 when the film was released). There's also, in my opinion, a typical McMurtry lean towards emphasizing sex. It is often as if he wrote with the intention of bringing sex up or creating random sexual tension whenever possible. I realize that this is part of the point of this movie but I had moments where I felt it was more tedious than anything else. However, that said, the tension and anxieties of getting old and getting laid have always been integral to any coming of age story, of which this is a quintessential example.
Watching this film for the first time I can't help but compare it to the work McMurtry did on Brokeback Mountain, which certainly echoes the relationship between Bottoms and Bridge. It also calls to mind the Outsiders and any other number of films/books that tackle, particularly the American, coming of age story.
3.5 McMurtry's out of 5
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