Return of the Secaucus 7

College friends reunite for a New England summer weekend in this low-budget first feature by accomplished independent filmmaker John Sayles. A predecessor of the well-paced, character-driven films in Sayles' future, Secaucus Seven also looks ahead to the 1980s ensemble movies that it inspired, most ...more

Iconoclastic writer-director John Sayles made his first impact in 1980 with this less commercial predecessor to The Big Chill (1983). Both films are about a group of radical friends from the 1960s who get together for a reunion some years later. In Lawrence Kasdan's 1983 hit, the principals are sliding into Yuppiedom. In Sayles's low-budget account, the characters are more realistic, their quandaries somewhat less dramatic, and the politics and dialogue less trendy. As would be his habit in ...more