Poster of Head On

Head On

Drama, Romance

Director: Ana Kokkinos

Release Date: August 13, 1998

Where to Watch

I’m not sure how Head On got in my queue, and now that I’ve seen it, I’m even less sure than before. (Possibly wanted to see a film with the same title and there was a mixup???? No idea.) I can deal with unlikeable main characters and aimless young adults. I watch Girls. I like antiheroes. I’m not bothered by explicit heterosexual or homosexual sex scenes in movies or television. I wanted to relate to his experiences as a child of an immigrant, but I just didn’t like the main character. Because I didn’t enjoy watching the main character, the last thing that I’m interested in is in the day of the life of that character. I don’t know if something was lost in translation because Head On is about a Greek man who is first generation Australian. He is proudly doing his best to be mindless, not accomplish or stand for anything and live a hedonistic life, but he isn’t even a fun guy to party with, and he only enjoys his fun briefly. All his fun ends in anger and ruining his friends’ good times. I think that is the point of the character. His futile efforts to experience pleasure expresses his frustration at his parents’ culture with his desire for more freedom, but in the end, he is joyless and has to careen into the next experience with less of a high at each turn. Maybe there aren’t enough film representations of unlikeable people with no positive attributes or interesting facets. Maybe that fact makes Head On a brave movie, but it did nothing for me. I did admire Paul Capsis, who plays Johnny/Toula, a minor role and the polar opposite of the main character. She knows who she is and other than that, there isn’t anything terribly remarkable about her except her willingness to live her life openly regardless of the infinite negative reactions. I don’t need my main characters to be inspirational, redeemable or even have epiphanies, but I need something, and I didn’t get it.

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