“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” Is Not Dead Yet

Release Date：May/25/2018
Genre：Comedy/Music/Romance
Director：John Cameron Mitchell
Cast：Nicole Kidman、Elle Fanning、Ruth Wilson、Alex Sharp

Viola's Rating：5.3



Do you have problem talking to girls at parties? “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” seems like a young adult feature film instructing its audience on social interactive skills, but in fact, it’s a try-to-be cult film discussing one’s identity with a glimpse of the budding years of punk rock in the UK.

Adapted from British author Neil Gaiman’s short fiction of the same name, this romantic, music-themed comedy tells the story of an alien, Zan (Elle Fanning), travels around the galaxy, breaks away from her group and meets three young local people of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon, the birth place of Punk Rock.

Starting with a very futuristic and hallucinative opening, moviegoers don’t really get the concept that the film has already started instead of watching at another logo animation. Also, the first half hour of the flick is more of a B-movie rather than a cult movie, with all different colonies of aliens left unintroduced assuming that all the audience get the idea of the hidden message each colony represents respectively.

“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” not only talks about the literal meaning of the title, but also the rebellious and wild attributes of punk rock and how that affects people. To truly understand what attitude one should have toward daily life and everything instead of obeying blindly is the critical lesson in the motion picture.

Through the interaction between Zan and the main character Enn (Alex Sharp), more issues are discussed in “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”. Due to the reason that Zan is an alien, many things we take for granted every day such as eating and excreting are viewed in a brand new way, symbolizing that in 1977, people start to think about their culture, even sub-culture, their relationship with people and what they believe in.

Although the movie wants to put too much stuff at once, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” still manages to create an ambience of romance and draw attention to the subjects of parenthood and romantic love. What’s pity is that these relationships aren’t depicted enough in the picture as well as all the other topics. Maybe Director John Cameron Mitchell has many thoughts to share with his audience while writing the script, but no one can digest so much information all at the same time.

Even though the percentage of punk in “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is more of a story background and the symbolic theme of the feature film, it’s touching for rock music aficionados to watch because of people’s motivation creating punk rock, the blooming live house underground and the development of rock music through punk.

If you’re a rock fan, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is probably your thing, but as too much stuff is put into the film, it’s easy for the audience to feel overwhelmed. Therefore, we can only say it’s not dead yet just like rock isn’t dead yet.

Picture Credit: IMDb