New Faces Of 1996

NOAH BAUMBACH

Graduating With Honors

NOAH BAUMBACH HAS suffered from separation anxiety ever since the womb. "I was a late baby," says the 26-year-old director of "Kicking and Screaming." "And I didn't like leaving school. Or leaving New York to make this movie. Or leaving the movie." For the hypercerebral slackers in his film, leaving college means hanging around campus and seducing freshman girls. But Baumbach catapulted into the real world by making a movie about postcollege inertia instead of wallowing in it. He wrote "Kicking" as soon as he graduated from Vassar in 1991. Since the film debuted at the New York Film Festival last fall, Baumbach's been inundated by directing offers, but for now he'll make only movies he's written himself. Soon he'll start shooting "Mr. Jealousy," about confused post-postcollege grads undergoing mid-20s crises. What would he know about a mid-20s crisis? "Outside of filmmaking, I'm completely scattered," he insists. "But a movie is something I can organize. It's my perfect, indulgent little world." No wonder he has trouble leaving it behind.

BENICIO DEL TORO