Synopsis
Over the course of one sweltering day in New York City, teenager Telly roams Manhattan in search of sex while his friend Casper tags along. Meanwhile, Jennie learns she is HIV-positive and sets out to find Telly, the boy who infected her. Their paths eventually converge, revealing the dangerous consequences of recklessness, peer pressure, and the adults' absence from their world.
Factoids & Trivia
- The screenplay was written by Harmony Korine when he was 18 or 19. It became his first produced feature script.
- Korine met the film's director, Larry Clark, while spending time with skateboarders in Washington Square Park. Their conversations about teenage life eventually developed into the film.
- The movie was made on an estimated $1.5 million budget and became a substantial independent hit, earning more than $20 million worldwide.
- After the Motion Picture Association assigned the film an NC-17 rating, Harvey and Bob Weinstein created the independent distributor Shining Excalibur Films. This allowed the movie to be released outside Miramax, whose parent company Disney had a policy against distributing NC-17 films.
- The film was released theatrically as unrated rather than carrying the NC-17 label. Its explicit treatment of teenage sexuality, drug use, and HIV made it one of the most controversial American releases of 1995.
- Several performers were making their feature-film debuts, including Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson. Sevigny was initially brought in for a smaller part before taking on a central role.
- The film's naturalistic style and use of young people connected to New York's skateboarding scene helped blur the line between documentary observation and scripted drama.
- Its reputation grew after release, and it is now widely regarded as a landmark of 1990s independent cinema and a cult film.