Rating 18
Length 1h32
Release 03.12.1982
Director Amy Heckerling
About Driven by their fickle wits, a group of youngsters find themselves entangled in a web of sex, drugs, validation and dejection.
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: Now TV
Trailer:
The Good
As with many other high school films, the soundtrack is incredible. It’s of its time and also somewhat timeless. I can imagine this being a sought after album at the time of release and there’s certainly a few songs going to be added to my playlist.
The plot, while a generic “year of”, covers an incredible amount of ground. Judge Reinhold and Sean Penn give us two examples of success, or lack there of. Rat and Demone give us the emotional conflict of changing friendships. Finally we have Stacy and Linda, our empowered women.
Stacy’s abortion storyline, is handled well. Yes, more could have been made of it: we know this from the existence of Juno (2009) and The Cider House Rules (1999) but it being present without any judgement from characters is quite powerful.
The Bad
I think there needed to be more visual prompts to aid with the passage of time. The Christmas marker was good, but I think it needed a little more to prevent it from feeling like a very leisurely amble. While there’s a risk of it feeling episodic, I think it would be worth the risk and it could have been sectioned into “lessons” or “terms” perhaps.
The Ugly
I cannot quite put my finger on what is missing, but there’s something that prevents this from being elevated to the level of Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You and Dirty Dancing. Perhaps it’s that it’s a little before its time in term of expressing feminism or it could be that this film walked so that many others run. By which I mean I spent a lot of the time distracted by identifying films this one would go on to influence; Clueless, Big and Ted’s many Journeys, Pineapple Express. Just to name a few.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed this to see this films legacy, but it was also quite fun to see the impact this had on Stranger Things; not only in the literal sense, but in the visual aspects.
The Queens of Geekdom 