Rent Nowhere (1997)

Neon, Noise, and Nowhere to be Found - Nowhere review by griggs

How did Nowhere pass me by? I was its perfect audience. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cinema run in 1998, and no home release until 2013. It didn’t just fall through the cracks—it was buried.

Gregg Araki’s neon fever dream caps his “Teenage Apocalypse” trilogy with its wildest, weirdest entry. It plays like a high-camp soap opera directed by a glam rock alien on a sugar high. James Duval floats through it navigating crushes, betrayals, alien abductions, and the literal end of the world—with a centre parting worthy of its own credit.

The cast is a who’s who of ’90s alt-icons—way too old for high school, and that’s the point. This isn’t realism; it’s hyper-saturated mood. The colours are radioactive. The dialogue is absurdist. The soundtrack? Flawless. It’s your most excellent mixtape come to life.

It’s camp, it’s trashy—and yet it aches. Behind the glitter is real loneliness: end-of-days melancholy wrapped in fishnets and lip gloss. It doesn’t explain itself—it pulses with mood and meaning.

This is queer, messy, millennial melancholy at its best—the kind of film that would’ve melted minds and cracked hearts wide open. Watching it now feels like unearthing a lost prophecy on a bootleg VHS. Pure cult cinema. Pure serotonin. Proof that sometimes, the apocalypse comes with cheekbones and a perfect playlist.