SMITHEREENS

A snapshot of young lust, ciggy butts, poor choices and torn clothes in New York's 80s punk scene.

Decades on from punk's grubby birth, the aesthetic lives on. Now fans of the gutter scuzzballs and freaks can spend 90 minutes in a timewarp of New York's East Village, circa 1982, with this low-fi classic from Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan, Sex and the City).

Susan Berman debuts as Wren – the switched-on, roughed-up point in a love triangle with Richard Hell and Brad Rinn. Buffeted between Hell's bad boy and Rinn's nice guy, Wren misbehaves her way into the nascent punk scene where talent is an afterthought.

The fashion and flophouses are all-too-familiar, the Feelies soundtrack perfect, and the heroine is catnip to all of us who long to be dangerously thin and make rash decisions. Beloved for its knowing portrait of ‘that kind of girl' and a crumbling city with inhabitants to match, Smithereens is indulgent, dirty fun.

"Ragged, funny and eccentric." – The New York Times