George Lucas makes teenage cruising funny, awkward and unexpectedly moving, with cars and radio doing much of the storytelling. A few conversations outstay their welcome, but the affection for these uncertain young people is well earned.
George Lucas’s American Graffiti is a funny, affectionate coming-of-age film that earns most of its fondness for the past. Set among California teenagers in 1962, it treats cruising, radio and the business of looking confident as enough material for an evening. We recommend it warmly, with a warning that a few stretches coast past the point of usefulness. Its attention to ordinary adolescent worries keeps the nostalgia from becoming merely an invitation to admire the cars.
The screenplay by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck understands how much teenage conversation is an attempt to establish who deserves respect. A car, a companion or a casual remark can become evidence that somebody knows what they are doing. Richard Dreyfuss gives Curt Henderson an appealing hesitancy. The blonde in the white Thunderbird attracts the sort of disproportionate attention that a brief glimpse can command at that age, and his uncertainty makes the fascination believable.
Paul Le Mat’s John Milner is particularly good at making confidence seem like something that needs constant maintenance. Ron Howard gives Steve Bolander a more straightforward assurance, and the difference helps these young men remain distinct even when their concerns overlap. Cindy Williams, as Laurie Henderson, makes irritation worth listening to, which exposes the writing’s narrower interest in its young women. The screenplay too often asks them to respond to the boys, whose uncertainty gets the more generous hearing.
Jan D’Alquen and Ron Eveslage photograph the cars with a pleasure in colour that makes their appeal easy to understand. The darkness around them keeps the streets from looking like an exhibition of restored possessions. Aggie Guerard Rodgers’s costumes have the same ease: the young people look dressed for an evening out, without each outfit insisting on the date. There is room to notice a face before inspecting what somebody is wearing.
Marcia Lucas and Verna Fields cut between the groups with a good ear for changes in mood, letting an anxious exchange give way to a lighter one. The parallel stories make this small town feel busy without requiring a central incident to summon everyone. There are passages, though, when returning to a familiar concern produces little beyond another version of the same conversation. At 112 minutes, the film has enough slack for that amiable repetition to become noticeable.
The radio is what makes the wandering feel continuous. Rock’n’roll gives the separate journeys a shared accompaniment, and Wolfman Jack’s voice keeps company with people who cannot quite say what they want. We felt unexpectedly wistful watching the teenagers cruise Main Street with that voice in their cars. The familiar route and the prospect of another song make it easy to understand why anyone might want the night to last.
Coming-of-age comedies can be exhausting when every mistake has to lead to a lesson. George Lucas lets a foolish worry matter to the person having it, even when its importance escapes everyone else. Give it an evening when nobody is waiting for the plot to hurry.
