Synopsis

In 1981, suburban New Jersey teenager Anna Stockard dreams of studying art at Cooper Union, but her plans are threatened by declining grades and a growing attraction to parties, sex, drugs, and alcohol. Living with a bitter mother and troubled younger brother, Anna struggles to balance artistic ambition with the pressures of friendship, rebellion, and approaching adulthood.

Factoids & Trivia

• Whatever was Susan Skoog's low-budget feature debut. She wrote the screenplay as a response to what she felt was the lack of an honest film about suburban teenage girls.

• Sony Pictures Classics released the film theatrically in the United States, with a New York opening during the week of July 10, 1998, followed by a Los Angeles opening on July 17.

• The story is set in 1981, placing Anna's teenage experimentation in the period before AIDS awareness transformed the public conversation about sex and drug use.

• Production used locations connected to Skoog's background, including Red Bank, New Jersey, while additional filming took place in Wheeling, West Virginia. Cooper Union in New York also appears as an important setting.

• The soundtrack helps establish the period through music by artists including the Ramones, Blondie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, and the Pretenders. The expense of licensing well-known songs reportedly consumed a significant portion of the independent production budget.

• The film runs 112 minutes and received an R rating from the MPAA.

• After limited availability following its original release, Whatever developed a small cult following and received anniversary screenings, including a 20th-anniversary presentation at New York's Quad Cinema in 2018.