Zachary’s review published on Letterboxd:
I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor, insignificant preamble to somethin' else.
Rare is the high school/coming-of-age film that portrays American youth as it is. It's rarer still for a movie of this type to be this charming, timeless and genuinely loving of that time and these characters without softening a thing about any of it. Linklater captures authenticity in a way only a true blue 90s auteur can, and so of course his rebel youth opus is both joyful and problematic. It's 70s Texas! The package comes complete with violent bullying, Watergate jokes, underage drinking, "rebel gray", and a woke ass teacher trying in vain to take out white privilege decades before anyone gave a damn!
Dazed and Confused is brilliant, and more than that, it's a blast. I love this movie, and I love revisiting it. I get older: it stays the same age. And that's what I like about high school movies.
