Ten Thousand Saints movie review (2015)

Johnny is a tattoo artist (before that was a cool thing to do: Johnny mentions it being illegal in New York at that time) and a member of a band called Army of One. Army of One identify as "straight-edge", a subculture of the post-punk period, when certain bands reacted against the overindulgence of their predecessors. "Straight edge" musicians lived clean lifestyles (many were former addicts), and made it a point to not hit on every woman in sight at their shows. They were "pure", they were above sex/drugs/rock-n-roll. 

Johnny is our entryway into that world. He's devastated at the death of his younger brother and becomes invested in Eliza's teenage pregnancy, taking a protective and almost fatherly attitude towards her. Johnny splits his time between band rehearsals and the Hare Krishna temple out in Brooklyn. Jude and Eliza trail along, going on mini-tours with Army of One, putting duct-tape X's on their hands (a "straight-edge" signifier). Jude, of course, has a huge awkward crush on Eliza. Johnny's "straight edge" mentality keeps him gentlemanly about whatever feelings he may have. Eliza is, in reality, an avatar. She's viewed through the gazes of all of the men in her life, and she knows it. She's 17, 18 years old, she's pregnant, her mother is furious at her. Everyone focuses so much on her unborn baby that she gets lost in the shuffle. 

This cast of characters, Jude, Eliza, Johnny, Les, Jude's mother, Eliza's mother, intersect, explode, retreat, argue, make mistakes, bang on each other's doors, have extremely stilted "family" dinners where Les' cavalier comments stop the room. Normal suburban concerns do not come into play, although there are vague stabs at it. Between the hippies in Vermont, and the squatters in New York, these people are somewhat off the grid of mainstream American life, and they like it that way.

The setting is one of the most important factors in the film. New York in the 1980s, pre-Giuliani, was closer to the New York seen in "Midnight Cowboy," still filled with hustlers and hookers and peep shows ("live girls working their way through college" blared one neon sign at 40th and 8th) and graffiti covering everything. Garbage piles up on the streets. The homeless have created a tent city in Tompkins Square Park, and the imposition of a curfew (to control the homeless population) has resulted in riots and protests, growing in strength with every day. "10,000 Saints" portrays all of this believably, with only a couple of shots of stock footage (necessary since that neighborhood has changed so drastically). You get a visceral feel for that neighborhood in the film, its sense that unstoppable forces were moving in on them, running them out of town.