Critics reviews

If it starts out rather like a by-the-numbers observational film, content to just show things its directors find worth showing, it winds up a very good observational film, skilled at finding ways to convince its audience that those things are worth seeing. What starts out a satire of people with meaningless problems ends up an ode to people with meaningless problems. We expect something too self-conscious and instead find ourselves deeply moved. And we can laugh about it afterwards, too.

There's never been a movie quite like L for Leisure, which follows a loose vignette structure while vaguely resembling "Miami Vice" episodes as shot by a prepubescent Whit Stillman.

...It has been compared to the films of Whit Stillman, a claim that's spurious for a number of reasons... While Stillman's characters deliver their lines in a stylized cadence which creates and sustains carefully modulated consistency of tone, Horn and Kalman make an aesthetic of amateurism, employing an ensemble of nonprofessionals whose performances vary greatly in believability and ease—they even emphasize inconsistencies within a single performance.

The film is chock-full of visual landmarks and cultural references specific to the early-90s: Snapple, Rollerblades, Wayne's World's "Sha-wing." There's an endless supply of high-waisted Levi's and, best of all, a spontaneous A Capella rendition of Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby." ...For all its atmospheric laziness, this is not a film about (or for) slackers, but rather thinkers; embedded directly into the easy-breezy aesthetic is quite a rigorous exploration of time and space.

A period piece best appreciated less for its historical relevance than its microscopic adoration of a forgotten pop zeitgeist, Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn's L for Leisure is equal part class critique and deadpan laugh riot.

One problem with this mode of filmmaking is that it is essentially unfalsifiable: No element, however random (say, a dog on a body board), can be deemed out of place. It is possible to admire Mr. Kalman and Ms. Horn's ambition and at the same time have no idea what they were trying to achieve.

Kalman and Horn, in their own understated way, have updated the French actress Simone Signoret's piquant remark that "nostalgia isn't what it used to be": Their wry, nimble film points the way forward for others who might also wish to look back.

What makes L for Leisure more than just a collection of clever, well-photographed jokes is the utter sincerity embedded within the constant sarcasm. The most attention-getting gags — a man playing a pickup basketball game with a Miller High Life in his hand; a "race war" discussion interrupted by someone asking, "Hey guys, want some rum-raisin ice cream?" — remain weirdly, invitingly attuned to the rhythms of everyday living.

The archly intellectual dialogue and cushy milieu are reminiscent of the world of Whit Stillman, but, here, "L" is also for landscape: unlike the sociological hedonist Stillman, Horn and Kalman pursue a chaste ecstasy of natural wonders, investing their glorious settings with spiritual dimensions rooted in a visual beauty that is, for them, the best thing money can buy.

Horn's cinematography loves sunlit beauty and human absurdity, juxtaposing awesome, glowing beach and forest panoramas with dipshits on rollerblades and skateboards, her 16mm evoking the 90210 color palette and aspect ratio. Under the cover of very funny mock-academic dialogue and the mellow wandering tempo of one vignette to the next, Kalman and Horn continue the subtle work of omission and implication they began in BLONDES.

In an earlier version of this piece, I called L for Leisure "the movie of the century so far." A little hyperbole's a great way to blow off steam, but I did mean it, in one specific way. Luring us into feeling effortlessly savvy about the very recent past, L for Leisure is a perfect metaphor for everything we know so far about right now, from our insinuatingly knowing failsafe corporate entertainment to our social-media habits. Enjoy it at your peril.

It moves so artfully against the rhythms and cinematic trends that it feels fresh. In taking on everything popularly conceived as wrong about a certain generation and a certain kind of filmmaking, its argument becomes a simple request to its inevitable detractors: mellow out.