Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

In the industrial heyday I recall from my youth, I heard my hometown - East Chicago, Indiana - referred to as the "Armpit Of America." An immigrant named Danilo Prozor (Craig Wasson, "Ghost Story") learns that lesson and many more about life and love during the turbulent sixties in "Four Friends," a 1981 film loosely based on the experiences of its screenwriter, Steve Tesich, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of "Breaking Away." After immigrating to East Chicago from Yugoslavia, Danilo and his mother (Elizabeth Lawrence) join his steelworker father (Miklos Simon) at the home he has made on Aberdeen Lane.

It is on Aberdeen Lane that Danilo meets his three best friends: David (Michael Huddleston, "The Woman In Red"), whose family runs the local funeral home, Tom (Jim Metzler, "One False Move"), the handsome one of the group, and Georgia (Jodi Thelen, "The Wedding Singer"), a free spirit who's the girl of Danilo's dreams. She dreams of him, too, but she wants to grow up faster than Danilo. The friends are in the school band together, and they dream of what they will do when they graduate. Dreams soon give way to reality for Tom and David. Meanwhile, Georgia tells the boys she wants to lose her virginity, and aggressively turns to Danilo to be her partner. When Danilo rejects her advances due to their timing, Georgia finds Tom a willing lover.

Danilo also learns what life in America has done to his father. Mr. Prozor is a bitter and cynical man who displays no pleasure in anything. He tells Danilo, "Fight back!" in the angriest of terms. When Danilo announces his plans to attend college, his father says no and tells him, "We work." In spite of that declaration, Danilo becomes the only one of the friends to leave East Chicago and go to college. There, Georgia, who has married David and expecting a baby fathered by Tom, is still on his mind. However, his dormmate, Louie Carnahan (Reed Birney) has an idea. Louie thinks Danilo might be the right guy for his sister, Adrienne (Julia Murray).

Danilo and Adrienne hit it off, and he intends to ask Mr. Carnahan (James Leo Herlihy) for his permission to marry her. Louie, however, strongly advises against it. Danilo, however, wants to do the right thing, and asks anyway. Mr. Carnahan, in response, asks Danilo if he's willing to fight for anything. He has noted the young man has not enlisted for duty in Vietnam, and sounds like an upper class version of Mr. Prozor. Even Mr. Prozor is unimpressed by Danilo's plans. Instead of granting his blessing, he tells his son, "I will be at your wedding. That is all." As cold as that response may be, it pales in comparison to Mr. Carnahan's response. On the day of the wedding, Mr. Carnahan, whose possessive nature runs to very deep and disturbing extremes, makes Danilo a widow, and then takes his own life.

Danilo, who is injured during this melee, winds up adrift and soon takes his own journey of self-discovery. He spends awhile in New York, driving a cab. He then moves to Pennsylvania and works in a steel mill, just like his father. He also reconnects with his Yugoslavian roots and starts a relationship with his neighbor, Vera (Natalija Nogulich). Georgia, who has divorced David and has learned some hard lessons about being a free spirit, learns from Danilo's parents where he lives, and comes to his home unannounced. While Danilo and Georgia still fight, they both come to learn they're still in search of answers regarding life's most important choices.

"Four Friends" is a smart and moving examination of the changes that the sixties brought. While Danilo didn't fight his father, for civil rights, or in war, he was in a battle to be a man on his own terms. In an early scene, he disrupts a career day at his high school, telling off a representative of the local steel mill who has come to recruit seniors as laborers. He knows from his home life he has no desire to follow in his father's footsteps. Any life he might have had went Adrienne went unfulfilled, so he must rediscover what matters most. It's a film full of the idealism of youth, and full of the reality that life is compromise. The film is a little too idealistic at times, as in the film's later scenes that bring closure to the story and the sixties. It's as if screenwriter Tesich himself were trying to make his life during that time a little less imperfect. Still, it's a journey where we care about the people and how they deal with their imperfections.

I've read that director Arthur Penn ("Bonnie And Clyde," "The Miracle Worker") deliberately chose four relative unknowns for the title roles in "Four Friends" (In fact, this was the debut film for both Thelen and Metzler). In fact, the cast is full of actors who almost never get mentioned on "Entertainment Tonight," but I can't imagine any star actors improving on the work of this cast. Wasson, Thelen, Metzler, and Huddleston do well as the friends, but the outstanding performance is turned in by Simon as Mr. Prozor. He is dead-on as the blue collar man who never shows how much he really cares for his family. Neither his wife nor his son can cajole a smile out of him, though I am very much amused by the sort of man he represents. The most notable actors in this film have the smallest parts in "Four Friends." Mercedes Ruehl (Oscar winner for "The Fisher King") appears as a cab fare of Danilo's. Glenne Headley ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Dick Tracy") has a cameo as a drugged-out friend of Georgia's. Fans of the "Police Academy" series will recognize David Graf (who played Tackleberry) as Gergily, the school bully who never changes his ways. Penn, whose previous effort was the critical and box-office disaster "The Missouri Breaks" five years earlier, returns to familiar ground here with a fascinating look at characters trying to understand themselves and one another.

I have some personal memories of "Four Friends," which, in part, was filmed in East Chicago and neighboring communities. In the summer and fall of 1980, the film crews were at work right down the street from where I live, filling up the parking lot of Roosevelt High School (which was razed in 1986 to make way for its replacement, Central High School). I've driven by the Aberdeen Lane homes many times, and they still look very much the same. It's still a thrill to me to recognize these places on film. I even recognize an extra in one of the Roosevelt scenes.

Although the film idealizes certain things, "Four Friends" still presents an accurate portrait of life as it was in the "Armpit Of America." While industry isn't as active as it was here forty years ago, I can still see the blue-collar ethic of Mr. Prozor in myself and others I know. "Four Friends" shows those of us who were born here that our life may not always seem special, but people arrive here every day from other countries who are envious of us. We may not be free to live the lives we want, but we are free to pursue that end.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older