Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon are shown in the movie poster for the 1992 grunge-centric flick, Singles

(Relatively Speaking column from the July 17 edition of 24 hours)

It seemed so easy and breezy way back in the '90s. Well, easy because the juicy relationship drama that was unfolding was tucked away from real life and happening on the big screen.

Recently I backtracked to Singles.
That is to 1992 when Singles, the popular rom-com flick starring Matt Dillon as a shaggy-haired, narcissistic musician named Cliff, was released.

In it Bridget Fonda plays Janet, who has a deep unrequited crush on the Hamster-brained Cliff. Gotta say, back then this seemed a perfectly reasonable pastime to me because when you're young and dumb, nothing seems hotter than a singer wearing dirty denim.
My, how things change.

Now, the instant I hear "musician" as one's job description, I bolt quicker than a rock-star after a quickie.

The film, set during the height of the Seattle grunge scene, follows the messy entanglements of a young-ish set of hipsters finding love, losing it, and just generally getting screwed around.

Watching it the first time, I too craved late nights in loud, smoke-filled rock bars, complicated relationships and the spinning mental dissection that comes from asking, "Why hasn't he called yet?"

Now, many relationships later, the wish list has changed: Simplicity is the new sexy, boozy all-nighters a bore, and who the hell wants to sit around waiting for the phone to ring?

Like flipping through old dusty pics of exes, hearing a particular song or catching a whiff of something familiar, the right movie can send you back in time.

After revisiting this particular grunge-centric flick, I was shaking my head resisting the urge to scream 'Wake up Janet ... Cliff's a loser!" to rouse her out of her rocker-obsessed slumber because a) His song, Touch me I am Dick, pretty much sums him up b) He's desperately in need of a deep scrubbing and c) He's about as bright as burnt-out light bulb

Arguably the lure of musicians to some young women is an unofficial rite of passage, and that theme is brilliantly captured in Cameron Crowe's nod to the '70s music scene in Almost Famous, which sees Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) land the hot rockstar only to play the part of side-dish groupie to his main squeeze.

Somehow - naivety, raging hormones, raw rocker sex appeal - she can't resist his musician mojo, despite lingering rather pathetically in second place. But, like Penny Lane, who eventually snaps back to reality, we learn and grow from our missteps, and gradually gain a better understanding of who we are.

Seriously, pop on down to your local video store and grab a flick - or several - that once spoke directly to your former self and try watching it now. This easy time-travel gateway can either be a gauge of just how far we've come or make it painfully clear that we haven't exactly evolved.

In other words, if you're still sporting big '80s hair and desperately trying to get cast on the train-wreck TV show Rock of Love, starring a group of horny women competing for the affections of Poison singer Bret Michaels (who, incidentally, is 20 years past his prime), some self-reflection might be in order.

E-mail me at: tanya.enberg@sunmedia.ca