''Kicking and Screaming'' is a 1995 American

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by

Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach () (born September 3, 1969) is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for making witty and intellectual comedies set in New York City and has often been compared to writer-directors such as Woody Allen and Whit Sti ...

in his feature directorial debut. It tells of a group of college graduates who refuse to move on with their lives, each in their own peculiar way. The film stars

Josh Hamilton Joshua Holt Hamilton (born May 21, 1981) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder from to , most prominently as a member of the Texas Rangers teams that won two consecutive Americ ...

Chris Eigeman Christopher Eigeman (born March 1, 1965) is an American actor and film director. Eigeman is best known for roles in films written and directed by Whit Stillman: '' Metropolitan'' (1990), ''Barcelona'' (1994), and ''The Last Days of Disco'' (199 ...

Carlos Jacott Carlos Jacott (born July 28, 1967) is an American actor. He has guest-starred in numerous television series, such as ''Seinfeld'', ''Firefly'', ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Angel''. He has starred in film ...

, and features

Eric Stoltz Eric Cameron Stoltz (born September 30, 1961) is an American actor, director and producer. He played the role of Rocky Dennis in the biographical drama film ''Mask'', which earned him the nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Support ...

, Olivia d'Abo and

Parker Posey Parker Christian Posey (born November 8, 1968) is an American actress and musician. Posey is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award nomination, a Satellite Award nomination and two Independent Spirit Award nominations. Posey made her film debu ...

Cast

as Grover * Olivia d'Abo as Jane *

as Max Belmont *

as Miami *

Jason Wiles Jason Austin Wiles (born April 25, 1970) is an American actor known for his role in the NBC procedural drama series ''Third Watch'' from 1999 to 2005. Early life Wiles was born in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., and raised in Lenexa, Kansas, where ...

as Skippy *

Cara Buono Cara Buono (born 1973/1974) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Dr. Faye Miller in the fourth season of the AMC drama series ''Mad Men''; Kelli Moltisanti in the sixth season of ''The Sopranos''; Linda Salvo in the 2006 ...

as Kate *

as Otis *

Elliott Gould Elliott Gould (; né Goldstein; born August 29, 1938) is an American actor. He began acting in Hollywood films during the 1960s. Elliott's breakthrough role was in the ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'' (1969), for which he received a nomination f ...

as Grover's Dad *

as Chet *

Marissa Ribisi Santina Marissa Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American actress who performed in the films '' Dazed and Confused, True Crime, The Brady Bunch Movie, Pleasantville'', and ''Don's Plum'' and television shows such as '' Felicity'', ''Friend ...

as Charlotte *

Dean Cameron Dean Cameron (born Dean Eikleberry; December 25, 1962) is an American television and film actor and musician. He is known for his role as Francis "Chainsaw" Gremp in the 1987 Mark Harmon comedy '' Summer School''. He also played Dave Marshak i ...

as Zach *

Perrey Reeves Perrey Reeves (born ) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her recurring role as Melissa Gold on the television series ''Entourage'' from 2004 to 2011 and Frank the Tank's wife in the 2003 comedy '' Old School''. E ...

as Amy *

as Danny *

Jessica Hecht Jessica Hecht is an American actress and singer who played Gretchen Schwartz on '' Breaking Bad'', Susan Bunch on ''Friends'', and Carol on '' The Boys''. She has also made numerous Broadway appearances. Early life and education Hecht was born ...

as Ticket Woman

Production

Much of the film was shot at

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

Jason Blum Jason Ferus Blum "Jason Ferus Blum was born in LA in 1969 to Shirley Neilsen, an art professor, and Irving Blum, an art dealer" (; born 1969) is an American film and television producer. He is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, whic ...

, Baumbach's college roommate who was producing a film for the first time, obtained financing after receiving a letter from family acquaintance

Steve Martin Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominated ...

endorsing the script. Blum attached the letter to copies of the script he sent around Hollywood.

Reception and legacy

''Kicking and Screaming'' received mostly positive reviews, with many critical assessments describing it as remarkably competent for a directorial and writing debut, expecting that Baumbach would "graduate to better things." On review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 57% based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Witty and watchable yet undeniably flawed, ''Kicking and Screaming'' marks writer-director Noah Baumbach as an emerging talent with intriguing potential." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

praised the film's "good eye and a terrific ear; the dialogue by writer-director Noah Baumbach is not simply accurate... but a distillation of reality–elevating aimless brainy small-talk into a statement." Reviews often mentioned the thin and meandering plot, but most noted this as a facet of the characters' life stage.

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' stated, "''Kicking and Screaming'' occupies its postage-stamp size terrain with confident comic style." According to Kevin Thomas of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', "You begin to wonder why you're bothering to watch the aimless lives of these four unfold... At 25 he may be too close to the material to achieve the detachment from which irony and meaning flow." In a 2020 retrospective article, Nathan Dunne of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote the film is "a charming distillation of 90s slacker posturing and the tedium of a quarter-life crisis." The film premiered in 1995 at the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is ...

to critical acclaim. Baumbach was chosen as one of ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

''s "Ten New Faces of 1996". The

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

released the film on DVD on August 22, 2006 in the U.S.

References

External links

* * *
''Reasons for Kicking and Screaming''
an essay by

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...

at the

''Kicking and Screaming'' on MUBI
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kicking And Screaming 1995 films American romantic comedy-drama films 1995 directorial debut films 1995 independent films 1990s romantic comedy-drama films Films directed by Noah Baumbach Films set in universities and colleges Trimark Pictures films 1995 comedy films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films