Synopsis
A musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes' novel about life in late 1950s London. Nineteen-year-old photographer Colin is hopelessly in love with model Crepe Suzette, but her relationships are strictly connected with her progress in the fashion world. So Colin gets involved with a pop promoter and tries to crack the big time. Meanwhile, racial tension is brewing in Colin's Notting Hill housing estate...
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Eddie O'ConnellColin, Photographer / Narrator
- Patsy KensitSuzette
- James FoxHenley of Mayfair, Dressmaker to the Queen
- David BowieVendice Partners
- Ray DaviesArthur, Colin's Dad
- Mandy Rice-DaviesFlora, Colin's Mum
- Eve FerretBig Jill
- Tony HippolyteMr. Cool
- Graham Fletcher-CookWizard
- Joseph McKennaFabulous Hoplite
Recommendations
- 100
Los Angeles Times
One of the most entertaining movies this year, and one of the few that shows real invention and audacity, along with big-studio technical flash. [8 June 1986, p.C27] - 80
Variety
Absolute Beginners is a terrifically inventive original musical for the screen. Daring attempt to portray the birth of teenagedom in London, 1958, almost exclusively through song is based upon Colin MacInnes' cult novel about teen life and pop fashion in the percolating moments just before the youth cultural explosion in the early 1960s. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
A visually inventive and energetic pop musical. - 75
Miami Herald
While it embraces many of the conventions of the movie- musical, Absolute Beginners overcomes the ready cliches with the crackling energy of jazz and youth. Both Kensit and O'Connell catch the rhythm of their personas early on, riding Temple's roller-coaster tale with care thrown to the wind. They careen off the brainless characters and the hard-knocks facts of life with a "who cares" resilience, never missing a beat in their quest for experience. [4 June 1986, p.D5] - 70
The New York Times
Looking through these layers of time, this flashy, extravagant rock musical, which opens today at the Ziegfeld, elevates style to a symptom and cause of social change. And though it aims for more coherence than it delivers, it has endless flair with no self-importance...For all its unevenness, Absolute Beginners is high pop culture. - 60
Los Angeles Times
Skim the pleasantly diverting surface of Absolute Beginners and you can easily forget that there is nothing contained beneath. [18 Apr 1986, p.C6] - 60
Newsweek
The paradox of this razzle-dazzle movie is that it demonstrates the triumph of the advertising ethos it attacks. Still, it's bold and undeniably different (what other musical turns a race riot into a happy ending?). Under its brassy, celebratory surface it's selling a surprisingly dour message about the waylaid dreams of the teen revolution. [5 May 1986, p.78] - 40
Empire
A general disappointment, but then with David Bowie and Patsy Kensit what did you expect.
