Smooth Talk (1985 / directed by: Joyce Chopra)
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXvmkCVbrBk
Still can't figure this movie out. That happens with me and lots of movies but I feel there's some urgency to know what's going on here since some people have rightly accused this movie of trying to punish girls exploring their sexuality and immediately brand all innocent flirting as an invitation for rape and violence. Still not sure that's what the movie is trying to do but it's really on the border. The only scrap of courtesy we're thrown is that we technically never see her and the stalker, Arnold Friend, have sex. After (whatever happens) is over, she doesn't act as though she's been forced into having sex (as far as I can tell), his intense demeanor has changed, and she very powerfully tells him to never come back again. He doesn't. Far as I can tell. I'm really on the fence about this movie because there's something very big working in its' favor with me but I'll get to that as I close. The movie is extremely nasty and portrays "laidback" summers with this family as domestic hell- short of significant physical abuse. There's a lot of emotional abuse. The mother feels run-down by her husband and neglected by Laura Dern's character and she takes it out on her in a way that makes every mother I've ever met look like June Cleaver. I've met mothers who were manipulative and mothers who could be mean but this woman - Mary Kay Place - is a terrorist. Whether she has a reason for it or not, it's really hard to watch her and Laura Dern try to bond. Put a foot wrong with the daughter and it's no problem, make one mistake with the mother and she goes Norma Bates on you. This girl may act like a brat but she pays for every tiny little thing she does over and over and over again like she's on trial for breathing. This is bothersome because she's not just a thoughtless, careless, selfish bitch or a giggly moron. She's portrayed as very smart by the movie even if she does play around with people a lot. She doesn't deserve this.
As a movie, apart from what it all means, it's not fun (for the most part, again I'll get to that in closing). But it's well-filmed, edited, acted, and again- the characters and their relationships are handled intelligently even during their bouts of nastiness. Though, another thing I didn't care for was the soundtrack. Almost all songs were by James Taylor. Yeah... One of the plot synopses of the movie includes this tantalizer: "It's summer, a time of shimmering hypnotizing heat. Romantic daydreams and distracting desires, fueled by the persistent beat of rock music lead Connie to an uncompromising reality..." Um, yeah, the beat of that hip-shaking, debauched rock 'n roll devil James Taylor would turn any normal girl into a leather-clad slut. Or whatever they were thinking. I was thinking at certain moments that the film was a little more fair than it sometimes gets credit for. Not all critics claimed it was a simple-minded thriller about demonizing flirting and non-void-filling intimacy. At one point, one of the guys she flirts with charmingly offers to punch her in the face. And I of course overreacted, immediately thinking this guy's a jerk. But when they get alone and they start getting into it, he's not only extremely gentle, he also doesn't get the slightest bit angry or dark when she starts objecting and jumps out of the car. The camera lingers on his face long enough to see he's only disappointed. I was happy with this. I was a little less happy about the idea that - whatever she did with the first boy she was alone with (William Ragsdale of
Fright Night, the ultimate embodiment of most of my high school crushes) - another guy she sees dates her one night, they go off alone, and she never hears from him again. Though in another later scene, she gets very blushy about the idea of him trying to find out more about her when one of her friends said a guy asked her questions about Dern. Another good example of where the film could be mistaken for pushing an agenda.
Lastly... there's the second half of the movie. Which is basically one long scene of him arriving at her house while she's home alone and trying to coerce her into getting in his car and going for a ride with him. The more she resists or plays around or keeps him (and the guy he brought along, sitting in the passenger seat) waiting, the more intense things get. I still can't decide whether he was up to no good all along or if he wasn't that bad but just spoke dangerously. The evidence leans heavily to: this guy is a manipulative, sleazy psychopath and she doesn't have the means at her disposal to defend herself if he forced his way into her house. Which he does anyway when he reminds her that their time is running out, but if he had had any designs on forcing her to get in his car through hostility... The movie won't deem to cross the line. Anymore than it does when he suggests that he'd burn her house down to get her to come out or when his friend in the passenger seat offers to cut the telephone wire outside the house. And then there's the extra fun of him saying he's asked every single one of her friends for personal details about her... But somewhere in all of this, I remain quisitive and skeptical that it was all cut and dry-he was a psycho. It's a very surreal situation, when you add everything up. For example- he not only claims to have asked everyone she knows everything about her, he also claims to be able to see what's going on with her family miles away. As in: exactly what they're doing at any given moment. Which would make him some kind of psychic. And she believes enough of it as did I. Also, except for his one line about the telephone, the friend in the passenger seat remains completely still and silent for the 35-40 minutes spent on Arnold getting Dern to get in his car. With a radio up to his ear. He just sits there and doesn't move. We learn absolutely nothing about him. And when Dern goes for a ride with Arnold, he stays at the house and... listens to the radio. Says nothing, barely moves.
This scene, even with minor controversy and unpleasent connotations, is nothing short of mesmerizing. A large part of that being how seductive Treat Williams is (however, this is the only role I've seen him in where I might describe him as an adonis- though the only meat we see is in his arms, I thought he was perfect). He plays almost as much of the long stalker scene silently selling his more tender features (and I'll be damned if what he was wearing didn't make him look perfect from all angles- I continue to mention this because he had quite a spare tire on
Tales from the Crypt). And this scene wasn't just fascinating to watch unfold, but I found it entertaining. Since before it, I didn't think the movie was nearly compelling enough. If you can put yourself, even for a second, in her position- it's hard for me not to find this a really interesting fantasy. I mean, just short of offering her any kind of power in their dynamic, he couldn't have been more attractive. To someone as twisted as me. And the movie almost invites this kind of reaction since he acts like he's not real. She even says "nobody talks that way." He's not just trying to dazzle her with poetry, he's talking as though existing was about expressing love through soft sex. And again, can't press upon this enough: the movie does not tell us what happened. So, if he was trying to add her to like a list of girls and was a pedophile... how would we know? She starts to tell her sister what happened and pulls back. Not out of shame, as far as I can tell. Though, also, not because it was her fantasy come true. And that's horrible- what happened? If we're all tasked to interpret it our own way, I'm going with: he was an angel, he would have done anything you asked him to do on command, and if you or Dern had asked him to come back- he would have. It's pretty easy to walk away from the movie with a perspective like that, the movie is
that vague with details. And that incredibly surreal.
