Buffalo '66

UK Release Date. 2 October 1998
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 50 mins
Director. Vincent Gallo
Cast. Rosanna Arquette, Vincent Gallo, Ben Gazzara, Anjelica Huston, Christina Ricci, Mickey Rourke.
Rating. 30%

Review.

Buffalo '66 is the feature-length directorial debut of avant-garde auteur, Vincent Gallo. Written, directed and starring Gallo - an angular, unshaven waif with a permanently gaunt look - the film plays out like a series of half-baked ideas rather than a coherent character study.

The film begins with an embittered, wretched and troubled individual (Vincent Gallo) who is released from prison and almost immediately kidnaps Layla (Christina Ricci) to act as his wife, in a pathetic attempt to impress his parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston). 

On one level, there appears to be a beautiful simplicity to the film - Buffalo '66 is a story about a boy who meets a girl, who ends up saving him from himself. But the film is too pedestrian, too self-absorbed and too downright impenetrable at certain points. The audience is teased with a dark finale and an uplifting happy ending. In the end, neither are offered up. Buffalo '66 isn't really about endings, as endings are conclusions, and Gallo is obviously in too much turmoil to organise his material into any semblance of a resolution.

The sole point of interest was an impressive performance by Christina Ricci, even if the overtly sexual role was created by a notoriously lascivious older male [Ricci was 17 years old at the time of filming]. Her character's motivations largely go unanswered; for example, why does Layla go along with the kidnapping? Why does she throw herself into the role of the wife with such zeal, and with such invention? I suppose it is more interesting than if she was passive, frightened and continually trying to escape. That would be the conventional approach. But there's not a thing conventional about Buffalo '66.