This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the movie Singles, writer-director Cameron Crowe’s light-‘n’-fluffy love letter to Seattle and the striving, sincere young adults therein.

At the time of its release, it was the victim of a Warner Bros. marketing campaign that emphasized the suddenly-hot local bands in its audio background (the soundtrack CD came out months before the film did), rather than the characters or plot(s). When it turned out to be a frothy tale of six dating-scene survivors, only one of whom was a musician, certain audience expectations were shattered. Nevertheless, it had a respectable theatrical run and remains a decent-selling video title.

It’s also the rumored unofficial inspiration for the Warner-produced sitcom Friends. (Check-list the similarities: A sextet of dreamy looking young Caucasians, representing a variety of serious and artistic careers, all of whom hang out at the same coffeehouse, most of whom live in the same apartment building that inexplicably has a couch in its front courtyard, and who head into and out of assorted romantic entanglements, sometimes with one another.)

According to the “grunge” stereotype popular in the national media of the film’s time, young Seattlites (especially those involved in the rock scene) were alleged to be listless, rootless, directionless slackers. Crowe saw something quite different: Aware, ambitious moral-decision-makers who want to take charge of their lives, to make a difference in the world and to experience ultra-ecstatic true love, but who are (to varying degrees) thwarted by an urban society that wants to stick them into confining, unfulfilling roles.

Campbell Scott (the film’s real male lead) plays a state transportation planner who’s staked his whole up-n’-coming career on a proposed elevated-rail project he calls the Supertrain, bound to resolve rush-hour jams, slow down suburban sprawl, and create a more Euro-like urban community. (Any similarity to currently hyped elevated-transit proposals is purely coincidental.)

Scott’s main affection object, played by Kyra Sedgwick, has some not-completely-identified job trying to stop water pollution.

And Matt Dillon’s messy-haired musician character is shown by film’s end to be the most courageous of the lot. He systematically, indefatigably works on getting his girlfriend bac, just as he works on getting his musical career off the ground. His no-compromise stance toward realizing his dreams makes him a heroic ideal to which the other characters can only try to emulate.

That said, Singles remains a fairly dumb film. The gag scenes and plot complications are way too predictable. The drab lines and situations given to the characters mirror the drab life-destinies they’re trying to escape. But it gives its characters far more dignity than so many later mating-n’-dating comedies.

And, of course, local viewers l love the many geographic inaccuracies (Sheila Kelley’s character bicycles from south Lake Union across the Fremont Bridge and into the Pike Place Market in successive shots), the now-gone sites (RKCNDY), and the now-gone cameo players (Wayne Cody, Layne Staley).