In "American Graffiti", director George Lucas follows the misadventures of four Californian teenagers one late summer night in 1962 as the focal point for an audience trip back to the last innocent year of the 60's, before the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam and revolting students. It is also a trip back to the last days of childhood, when everything was cool and easy, but we reluctantly started to realise that it would not stay like that forever.<br /><br />The film lacks a straight plot in the conventional sense, it just cruises along, relaxes, and then cruises some more, as do the characters: sensitive Curt has to decide whether he is the competitive type (and runs into a street gang while he's at it), All-American Steve contemplates life with or without his girlfriend, dragster John manages to breach some of his untouchable daredevil image by baby-sitting the twerpy Carol, and Terry the Toad finally gets himself a girl (and what a girl she is). At the end of the night, they all had a great time.<br /><br />Of course, the main protagonist is the rock'n'roll station, which broadcasts not only some of the greatest singles ever heard, but also the sum and substance of a way of life. Not the burgeoning hippie counter-culture lifestyle that would make headlines later on, but the frenzied materialist, frantically silly and boldly consumerist lifestyle of the 50's, with all its artefacts: fast food and drag racing, high school prom nights and acne remedies.<br /><br />"American Graffiti" is the cinematic equivalent and homage to that easy-going yet troubled universe, superficial and profound, funny and deeply nostalgic. Both the acting and directing are fresh, energetic and sparkling, accompanied be a doo-wop soundtrack that would have made Frank Zappa proud; all adds up to a living and breathing world of a movie.<br /><br />It could have been a masterpiece if George Lucas had tinted his romanticism with a bit more irony, but then, "absurdity" is not a word commonly found in the blockbuster dictionaries. Everyone who was ever young will love "American Graffiti" anyway.<br /><br />Overall rating: 7 (inspired) out of 10