You’re So Mon­ey – Why Swingers still rocks 20 years on

If ever there was a film that exem­pli­fies the old adage ​‘write what you know’, it is Jon Favreau’s Swingers. Reflect­ing on his career, Favreau has said, ​“if you stick to things that you know and under­stand and peo­ple that you know, it allows a very true voice and you tend to come off as a bet­ter writer than real­ly are, because you’re incor­po­rat­ing so much of real­i­ty into your piece.”

At the time Favreau might have been a nobody but instead of sell­ing his script, he was intent on main­tain­ing con­trol over every aspect of his 1996 debut fea­ture. He wasn’t hap­py with the changes that oth­er peo­ple want­ed to make, changes he strong­ly felt ​“inter­fered with my vision for the piece.” It’s a good job he stuck to his guns – 20 years after its release Swingers is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the decade’s best comedies.

In a time when grunge, raves and rap music were absorb­ing most ​’90s youth, Favreau and his posse were steeped in the swing revival that would emerge ful­ly lat­er in the decade. Dressed in bowl­ing shirts and pleat­ed trousers, he and his friends were try­ing to make their way in Hol­ly­wood and while the film isn’t auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, Favreau has revealed in inter­views that ​“it was def­i­nite­ly based on peo­ple and places and inspired by events.” You can tell. The dia­logue is authen­tic, warm and nat­u­ral­ly fun­ny, with phras­es like ​‘Vegas, baby!’, ​‘beau­ti­ful babies’ and most famous­ly ​‘you’re so mon­ey’ quick­ly enter­ing the main­stream vernacular.

It wasn’t only a catch-phrase that went on to big­ger things, Vince Vaughn’s comedic career was sparked thanks to Favreau. Accord­ing to the writer, Vaughn’s char­ac­ter, Trent, was based ​“very close­ly” on the actor’s per­son­al­i­ty – no one before had played up his ​“rapid-fire deliv­ery or his sense of humour”. Every­thing from the charm­ing, ultra lo-fi open­ing cred­its, fea­tur­ing grainy shots of Las Vegas and the LA social scene, to the eclec­tic sound­track con­tributed to Doug Liman’s sec­ond direc­to­r­i­al effort. At it’s core the film is an hon­est, sim­ple sto­ry of guy whose bro­ken heart needs mend­ing, with the help of his friends and a trip to Vegas.

Swingers is all heart and it was no acci­dent that it set Favreau on his way to becom­ing the huge Hol­ly­wood play­er he is today. Even back then, he always had a good sense of what good sto­ry­telling is all about. ​“It all goes to emo­tion. If you’re emo­tion­al­ly engaged, every­thing is going to be fun­nier, more sat­is­fy­ing, scari­er, every­thing.” He has admit­ted that the rea­son you feel so con­nect­ed to Mike and his mates is, ​“because the sto­ry was so per­son­al and sin­cere, and that’s a very hard thing to main­tain as you do big­ger and big­ger movies.”

Favreau believes that if Swingers was made 40 years ago, when the indus­try was less exclu­sive it wouldn’t have been con­sid­ered an indie pic­ture. Today, he reck­ons that, ​“you have to appeal to a cer­tain age-group and have a cer­tain mar­quee val­ue. It costs so much mon­ey to open a movie,” which means the stu­dios have less free­dom to take risks. Swingers was indie because it was made ​“out­side the sys­tem,” but the sen­si­bil­i­ty he insists isn’t indie. ​“I think it’s just the tim­ing – if that movie were made today, it would be a main­stream film.”