Smithereens

All noise, all grime – welcome to New York City in the early 1980s. Wandering its seedy streets is Wren (the exquisitely insufferable Susan Berman), plastering photocopies of her own face captioned “Who is this?”, all over town. She drifts from the subway to copy shops, from dingy dance floors to other people’s apartments – anything to avoid going back to her native New Jersey. Soon, she’s asked out by Paul, a young man from Montana who sleeps in the back of his van. Recently evicted and completely broke, Wren accepts, but slowly begins to realize that maybe there’s nothing left for her in New York.  Her attention shifts to Los Angeles, where she hopes new doors might open thanks to her connection with Eric, a former member of a one-hit-wonder band. Desperate and adrift, Wren searches for herself in all the wrong places, trading genuine warmth for illusory fame. Shot on 16mm and self-financed by the director, Smithereens captures a city on the brink of decay and its desperate, spectral inhabitants – a snapshot of New York’s final days just before it’s taken over by corporate suits and bankers, who have no mercy for annoying flâneuses like Wren.