You've probably heard this quote from eighth century BC philosopher Hesiod in some high school valedictorian's speech: "I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint." And so it goes, with each generation bemoaning the horrors of the new brats snapping at their heels.
Joel Schumacher's Twelve (out this week from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment) fits the bill, with its portrayal of privileged New York kids frying their brains on designer drugs, but it's also part of a specific sub-genre. The film is based on the novel by Nick McDonell, and he's one of many young writers (he was 17 when he wrote it) who has made his name by writing about the excesses and vices of his own g-g-g-generation. And books like that have always been catnip for older directors who want to rip the lid off the lascivious "youth of today":
Bonjour Tristesse
The grand-daddy of the "the kids are all wrong, and I'm one of them" genre comes from Françoise Sagan, who wrote this international best-seller when she was 19 years old (and blowing off studying for her finals). This tale of a decadent dad and his blasé daughter was brought to the screen by Otto Preminger, with David Niven and pre-Breathless Jean Seberg in the leads. Boasting wonderfully lurid Technicolor, breathtaking Cinemascope vistas of the French Riviera, terrific performances (the cast also includes Deborah Kerr), and a cool undercurrent of amorality, Bonjour Tristesse is the doomed-youth movie to see if you're watching just one.
Bright Lights, Big City and Less than Zero
The publication of these two hit novels in the 1980s did for publishing what Easy Rider did for movies in the 1960s -- in that every disaffected college student with a prep-school background and a manuscript could suddenly get a meeting with a major publisher. (_BLBC_ author Jay McInerney was 29 when the book came out, and Zero's Ellis was 23.) Despite the somewhat questionable casting of Michael J. Fox as the dissolute hero of Bright Lights, that book made a more successful transition to the big screen than Zero, which somehow got scrubbed up into a just-say-no morality tale.
Historias del Kronen
Lest you think this is strictly an American phenomenon, Spanish novelist José Ángel Mañas rocked the Iberian publishing world in the mid-'90s at age 21 with his novel about privileged kids losing themselves to drugs, booze, sex, and repeated viewings of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer on VHS. The 1995 movie version of the book screened at several US film festivals but never got a theatrical release here.
Shoplifting at American Apparel
Tao Lin's 2009 novella is more about Internet-era malaise and less about illicit substances, but don't be surprised if some filmmaker who's decades older than the characters presented seizes upon the book as a way to excoriate the young and garner some hipster street cred.