Classic Movie Review: 30+ Years of Cameron Crowe's 'Singles'

Singles (1992)

Directed by Cameron Crowe

Written by Cameron Crowe

Starring Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon

Release Date September 18th, 1992

"I was just... nowhere near your neighborhood" - Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) Singles

My first conception of romantic love was shaped by Cameron Crowe and the movie Singles. I was 16 years old and, like every 16 year old, I thought I knew everything. I'd had a girlfriend and we had played at what it is like to be an adult couple. But it was just play. We had no actual concept of what we were doing and were far too immature to understand what was at stake when you are toying with emotions and saying 'I love you' without really knowing what that meant.

Then I saw Singles and I suddenly realized that what I thought was love was just the chaotic lust of being young. I saw a romance on the big screen that made sense to me for the first time. I had the broad strokes idea of what romance was, but far from a whole picture. Then I heard that line, 'I was just nowhere near your neighborhood,' and it clicked for me. The idea of romance and lust, love and reality, all came together in this linear puzzle in my mind. I was still an immature, headstrong child, but Singles had shown me that relationships were more than just make out sessions on a couch and that getting to know someone, struggling with them, meeting them on a truly emotional level, that was the goal, that's where fulfillment was. I've chased that feeling ever since.

Interestingly, the characters of Steve and Linda aren't the best example of romance in the movie. That distinction falls to Bridget Fonda's Janet and Matt Dillon's Cliff. While Steve and Linda are on center stage, Janet and Cliff are in the background, each struggling with their immaturity but growing slowly toward a better understanding of themselves. They aren't fully formed but by the end of the film, they've each grown and our final moments with them are hard won, the romance of Cliff and Janet emerges only after each has begun to grow on their own and become capable of sharing their life with someone on a real level.

Steve and Linda are different because they've already reached a particular level of adult responsibility that should indicate their overall maturity. Instead, what they realize is that they too still have plenty of growing up to do, specifically when it comes to relationships. Each has to realize what it means to be a partner and a friend before they can fully realize what true romance is. Cameron Crowe builds to their love story beautifully using that incredible line of dialogue as a signal of the growth and maturity of Steve and Linda over the course of the movie.

In some ways, Singles is rather simple, each of the main characters has a lesson to learn and we, the audience, similarly have something to learn from each of these characters. What raises Singles above what is expected is Cameron Crowe's sense of place, the singular and supremely effective ways in which Cameron Crowe makes Seattle more than just a city, but an icon of a moment in time. Grunge was the music of that moment and the sense of place he creates grounds his romantic universe while giving it life beyond the central characters.

Then there is the music, an equal partner to the actors in the grand, over-arching story of Singles. The music doesn't so much act as a Greek Chorus to the central romances but it nevertheless informs the moments in the lives of these characters that we are witnessing. If you're lucky, you've had a moment in your life that became an all time memory with a soundtrack. I'm talking about a first kiss that happened while a great song was playing or a moment of human connection where a song made everything feel right with the world.

No director, for me, captures moments like that quite as well as Cameron Crowe does and Singles is a perfect example. Whether it is the starchy guitar of Paul Westerberg or the luxurious and poetic beauty of Jimi Hendrix, the powerhouse grunge of Soundgarden or the unlikely elegance of an amazing Pearl Jam song, Crowe masterfully weaves music into Singles as if he were directing both a movie and a low key rock opera. Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Screaming Trees and Mother Love Bone each have a role to play in Singles as the underscore to a group of Gen-X'ers finding their way in the spiritual home of grunge.

As much as I adore Singles, and I do adore Singles, it occurs to me as I write this, that as much as Singles captures a moment in time and culture, it cannot be considered iconic. Singles is a very specifically white perspective. The film is deeply lacking in diversity. That also reflects the music culture of the movie, grunge was unintentionally a mostly white phenomenon. The bands and the people who enjoyed them didn't set out to be segregated, it just turned out that way. I am not faulting the movie or Cameron Crowe for reflecting what was in front of them in the grunge scene, but I also can't call a movie an iconic moment in time when the scope of the movie is as specific as it is in Singles. The movie isn't racist and I am not 'cancelling' Singles or Cameron Crowe but it would be disingenuous to call a movie as homogenous as Singles iconic.

Instead, we will settle on Singles as a wonderful representation of a sub-genre and, on a personal level, a brilliantly insightful, warm, funny, and enlightening look at what romance, sex and love are truly about. For me, Singles was part of my personal evolution. The film reached me in a way few films had at the time and gave me a new perspective of how I viewed women, romance, sex, and love. For me, on a very personal level, Singles is iconic. It gave me moments that have stayed with me for 30 years.

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