THE WAY WE WEREN’T

“We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic about?”
—skippy, kicking and screaming

feature, made when he was 26, Chet (Eric Stoltz) is about 10 years out of college, older than the rest of the characters, but still hanging around campus, bartending at a local hangout and taking classes. He’s not as corrupt as Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) in Richard Linklater’s , who declares happily, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” But the two share similarities. The characters in , a for the ’90s crowd, cling to patterns established. Near the end of the film, Chet says he’s realized, finally, that “This my life.” He is not on hold; he’s not avoiding growing up, or measuring success by any metric other than his own. There is no “other” life “out there.” This my life, and in Baumbach’s world, it’s the only revelation that matters, the only revelation that can make a difference. Chet’s comment is the closest that gets—that any Baumbach character gets—to a place of peace and self-acceptance.