Kicking & Screaming (1995)

Cinematic cases of postcollege anomie suffer from a basic contradiction: Twentysomething graduates who are witty enough to snap off characteristically cutting one-liners would probably not waste their time seducing jailbait coeds and downing pitchers at the local watering hole. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's contribution to the genre Kicking & Screaming — with its typically static plot involving four friends chained by apathy to their alma mater and hating themselves for it — adds no dramatic tension to that improbable scenario. But at least the dialogue (''Prague,'' scoffs Hamilton to his girlfriend. ''You'll come back as a bug'') scales the heights of post-Salinger acidity and provides an element of charming pathos well suited to home viewing.