← Back to results
Gummo
1997 89 min United States of America R 18+
★5.8
Drama, Comedy
Director: Harmony Korine
Trailers
Description
Teenagers Solomon and Tummler kill time in Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s.
Budget:
$1.3M
US Gross:
$116,799
Worldwide:
$116,799
Starring
Nick Sutton
Actor
Jacob Sewell
Actor
Lara Tosh
Actor
Awards
Venice Film Festival 1997
— FIPRESCI Prize – Honorable Mention
Key opinion
Harmony Korine’s directorial debut is a polarizing, avant-garde exploration of a decaying Ohio town that abandons traditional narrative structure for a collage of grotesque vignettes. Opinions are deeply divided between those who view it as a profound, raw piece of auteur cinema and those who condemn it as a repulsively nihilistic exercise in shock value.
| Cinematography | The film employs an intimate, hand-held, cinéma-vérité aesthetic that effectively captures a hyper-real, documentary-style portrait of urban decay. | |
| Score | The eclectic, atmospheric soundtrack is a defining feature that heightens the film's depressive and surreal tone. | |
| Acting | The cast delivers raw, authentic performances that ground the film's more extreme and surreal elements in a sense of lived-in reality. | |
| Screenplay | The absence of a traditional plot and the reliance on fragmented, non-linear vignettes frustrates viewers looking for narrative coherence, while others celebrate it as a bold, experimental rejection of conventional storytelling. | |
| Theme | The depiction of extreme social deviance and animal cruelty is lauded by some as a courageous, honest confrontation with human misery, while others find the imagery gratuitous, repulsive, and lacking any clear artistic purpose. | |
| Accessibility | The film’s confrontational, abrasive nature makes it deeply inaccessible to the average viewer, with many critics warning that it is suitable only for those prepared for a harrowing, nihilistic experience. |