I don't really feel like a need to add a summary here. All the people who have seen the movie know the story already but I believe that there is a deeper meaning to it. Much as James Joyce's Ulysses has the same story as the Odyssey but it is adapted to early 20th century Dublin with a more syncopated, modern, staccato style so this modern days American Graffiti is based in Astoria in the '80s. I don't know if anybody read the movie the same way. It is basically the same story: some young boys dreaming of leaving the oppression of a place with no future. But only one will leave, the others will be condemned to a bleak, boring future of drugs and joblessness. Give or take something and allow for changes in time, attitude,culture and place this really is a modern days American Graffiti. Great movie. Intense and absorbing if not technically accomplished. it speaks even to people who don't know where Astoria is because it talks of problems we all are familiar with.
Review of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
