American IdiotGenre: Drama
Director: David Michod
Writer: Meirad Tako
Based on the album by Green Day
Cast: Jeremy Allen White, Katherine Langford, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Keegan Allen, Billie Joe Armstrong (cameo)
Plot: The song American idiot plays while the film shows footage of several U.S war propaganda to Iraq, some all smiley-acted product ads, some celebrity doing protest on the war decision, some redneck person caught after killing a gay couple, and some politician debate over nothing.
The camera zooms out from the tv that plays the footage and shows a man (Jeremy Allen White) that has no future whatsoever, changing channel from one to other, feeling irritated, he turned off the tv and lay on the sofa he sits on. He reach the soda pop near him and then he closes his eyes trying to go to sleep that's when his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) gets home and immediately gets angry at him and tell him how useless and wrong his lifestyle is.
In which he answers while smiling "There's nothing wrong with me, this is what i'm supposed to be" before snapped and flip the table and leaving his mother with shocked on her face.
He walks to the 7/11 near his house where he meets with several other lowlife punk just like him, one in particular, asked him how's his mom, has he fucked her yet because it seems the crazy punk is becoming an old virgin, the man laughs and punch him hard to the face, he then told the other punk to give him their attention. He take some box to stand on and starts talking about what he thinks about the city and the world in general.
He starts talking to them about the truth and the bitter truths only, he told them that if this lifestyle that they choose is only gain attention, they should stop cause in reality noone will ever care about them, he told them that if they want to feel alive they need to go to the big city like New York where the neon bright light illuminates your life, the fun, the excitement, and if they keep stay in this jinglefucktown none of it will be achieved, "Stop believing, cause this land of make believe don't believe in you".
"But then again, what do i care?" he said for the last time and come down from the box but he stopped and turn back to the people and said "From now on, you should address me as Jesus, Jesus of Suburbia"
Jesus now is walking to the land of nowhere, where he can found peace and quite, it is some place under a bridge where he had put some sofa to sit on, he lay with his arm on his face covering his eys from the sun. He weeps, he talk to himself, "If there is someone, something, somewhere, in this world that can save me, please save me. Hah ... Fuck it" he got up and reach for his phone, when the call was picked up, he told them that he needs a good party for the night.
In timelapse, we can see the land of nowhere quickly filled and turned into the land of party full of drunk and high people of alcohol and cocaine, the night pass quickly where one by one the party goer fall asleep leaving Jesus alone back to his sofa, he can see the gate of Jingletown from there and he spits in anger, he wants to go out of this town.
The next day, he arrived at his house, entering it quickly, his mother approach him in anger but quickly turned into sadness as soon as she realize what Jesus is about to do, he is about to leave her. She starts weeping in front of the car. Jesus who is inside the car feels his heart is burning, but he doesn't know burning from what, anger?, sadness?, disgust?. He doesn't know but he decided to get out of the car and hug his mother for the last time before he drove away.
The song 'Holiday' play softly in the background when Jesus turn the car's radio on and stuck to only be able to find political debate over abstract matter which might or might not happened, they ignore talking about more concrete matter which is the wellbeing of the people, the debate keeps going and going and becoming absurder and absurder to the point they discuss about is giving birth real and how to prevent it. Jesus feels something with his ear is wrong, pulls over on the side of the road and as he hydrate himself with some soda the song stops.
In no time, he arrives in New York, but after living there for a couple of days he come to conclusion that the city is so far from his expectation, he thought the city would be filled with bright and neon lights, "wild" lifestyles and such, he finds all but depressed city. Dark alley full of lowlife nowhere-to-go people just like him. He starts having somekind of doubt in his way of thinking, his philosophy is now proven wrong, now he is philosophically dead and his physical is deader.
He spent his days from one cheap bar to another. From one bar to another, there's this feeling of losing himself, under the dimlight of bar and commonly hostile environment, he gets more obnoxious and violent in his act, he doesn't know the reason, to survive?, for attention?. He feels like deep inside he's not Jesus anymore, he's the desciple of himself, the one and only saint, St. Jimmy. He is St. Jimmy and so Jimmy is how he should called.
A man across the street (Billie Joe Armstrong) watch Jimmy drunk in the broad day light and falling after bumping on the trash can and laugh for no reason.
Day after day, night after night, the same repetition of the same event of partying and getting drunk, killing the numbing pain with Novacaine, but none of them works, the novacaine is indeed numbing his physical pain, but the dark void deep inside his heart and soul can never be repaired. he starts thinking to himself, what the hell is he doing, under the neon light of the bar, he thinks. He looks like the bar philosopher, figuring everything.
While walking from alley to alley, the loneliness in him is roaring, he sadly smile when thinking that it is better to be mocked by that stupid son of a bitch than being here. When he sit against the wall in the alley, some voice call him, he look up and it's a black-haired girl with eccentric fashion, Whatsername?
The film pause with the frame of her giving her hand to him for a brief moment to let 'She's a rebel' briefly plays.
Jimmy smiles and take her hand. When she came into his life, it gets significantly better, he never feel this fulfilled before, he thinks he loves her. He continue to do his drug party but this time he has her with him.
Times go bye real fast, a couple of years to be exact. Things get boring real fast, Jimmy came into realization that, the company doesn't make it better and how Whatsername likes to drag him into the darker part of the world, even darker from what he could imagine.
The relationship cracked and eventually loosening, Jimmy spend his days inside their apartment and Whatsername went out running the sex-economy for them without his knowing. Laying on the couch, feeling empty, he decided to tell her that he wants to stop this lifestyle and try to get a better, a 'Normal' life. He gets up from the couch and went to the club where he knows she is having fun there.
He gets in to the club and went looking for her only to see her in the toilet making love with someone he knows, Whatsisface (Keegan Allen),Jimmy was frozen in time, speechless, and broken. He walk out without saying anything, he sits on the bar and chugs a couple bottle of liquor and drive away.
It is a cold night, he drive recklessly through the east 12 street, for a couple of time he hit his head on the steering wheel and weep. Jimmy's weeping stopped when sirens blare from behind him, feeling running is useless, he stopped. Just like a blink of an eyes his behind bars, sentence for 6 month in jail.
"Nobody likes you, everyone left you, they're all out without you, having fun" he sings almost everyday for the first month in the cell, he feels down the moment he was sent to jail but he quickly get caught up by the Prison's Activity, the Rehabilitasion aspect helps him alot, he think to himself that he really do need theraphy, it made him smile, a bittersweet smile.
Prison Activity that Jimmy go through is shown one by one with photos, smiles grow from one photos to the next and in the last photo is his released from the prison.
His mother come to pick him up, she hugs him and cries and tell her she's sorry for everything and he just said that everything is okay.
The end credit roll up, with a small scene on the top left of the screen showing Jimmy looking out of the car window wondering where ehm ... Whatsername has been.
And oh ... Whatsisface? Have they married yet?
The credit is accompany by the last part of the song "Homecoming" titled "We're Coming Home Again"
[Post-Credit Scene]
The song "Whatsername" play softly on the background. Jimmy is just now merely a man who has changed, except for his habit of shopping in 7/11. He is now at 7/11 doing his usual shopping, when he looks out of the window there's a couple running with cops chasing after them, it's Whatsername and Whatisface. Whatsername who used to fill the void in his heart glanced at him in the middle of her run, the time froze and he smiled at her.
