That booze and weed-choked college ruffians of the 90s are now booze and weed-filled forty-somethings in the heavy-hitting drama Re:Uniting, the excellent feature debut of writer/director Laura Adkin. Twenty-five years after graduating college, class couple Rachel (Michelle Harrison) and Michael (Jesse L. Martin) invite the old gang up to their house on the water in Canada. During the reunion, Their kids stay with Rachel’s brother Ben (Michael Karl Richardson), so the booze and weed pops out immediately.
Former college wild girl Carrie (Bronwen Smith) can’t throw them down like she used to, as she has been raising kids this whole time. Perpetual party boy Danny (David James Lewis) can still throw them down; he even has some 29-year-old LSD tabs stashed for the occasion. Danny never settles down and makes a living as the fixer for their celebrity classmate Colin (Roger Cross). Colin is an ex-football player who now co-hosts a morning show and is also there for the reunion. Arriving late by seaplane is Natalie (Carmen Moore), a successful surgeon who never started a family.
“25 years after graduating college, class couple Rachel and Michael invite the old gang up to their house on the water in Canada. “
Glasses and pipes are filled, with everyone looking at everyone they used to know through a veil of a quarter century. Regrets rise to the surface, as do buried secrets and resentments. Then everyone finds out something that cuts the recreational intoxication off at the pass. Everything changes, and now everyone is going to start drinking with a purpose…
One of the things I like about this film is how Re:Uniting follows the tradition of the great “boomers looking back” movies like The Return Of The Syracuse Seven and The Big Chill. Growing up watching these films in the 80s, with folks who were 60s rebels trying to understand how they turned into grown-ups decades later, I always wondered what the Generation X versions would be like. Thanks to Adkin, the children of the revolution here have their own reflections on how well we rose from the wreckage.
"…exactly the kind of indie drama my generation needs right now"
