Too artsy for its own good.

The film is a study in infatuation and rejection, euphoria and frustration, and Van Sant observes their dance of desire and dismissal and wary coexistence without judgment.

Gritty, dirty, lyrical, altogether sensual.

It serves as Milepost 1 on Van Sant's highway to success.

Even at the start of his career, Van Sant has always been an artist who has savored the bittersweet pleasure of sadness and pain.

Van Sant would later refine some of the blunter stylistic turns into a wondrous visual poetry; his ability to capture the addictive pull of desire, however, remains compelling even in its crudest state.