Weekly Media – Pop is to music as Teen is to movie
In recent years, the term ‘teen movie’? has become distinctly dirty. In the same way that no credible musician appears willing to class their work as being of the ‘pop’? genre, anyone with any sense of proud pretension is very unlikely to admit their fondness for a film genre long associated with shallow characters, laughably derivative plots and hand-stuck-to-the-penis jokes. However, as with a trip to a vintage clothes store (or indeed TK Maxx), genuine greats can be found amongst piles of steaming, soiled rubbish. This week I review two of my all-time favourites:
Welcome to the [imdb: Dollhouse] (1995)
“Why do you hate me?”
“Because you’re ugly.”
Rather inappropriately, I first saw this film when I was ten. Some incompetent boob had stuck the wrong label on what I had assumed was a pirate VCD copy of Batman and Robin. As a result, I was very prematurely subjected to this unflinchingly nasty portrayal of adolescence and having seen it again very recently, I can safely say that my advance in years has only heightened the brutality of this film.
The unfortunately named Dawn Weiner is our unfortunate looking heroine, her bad teeth, greasy hair, thick glasses and gangly body embodying all that is horrific about puberty. What appears to be a direct result of her unfortunate hideousness is the daily humiliation she must suffer at the hands of those both at school (within the first five minutes of the film, we are forced to witness a school bully order that Dawn defecate in front of her) and at home, where she is either ignored or treated with disdain in favour of her pampered little sister and nerdy older brother. Holed up in a depressingly suburban New Jersey neighbourhood, thirteen year-old Dawn experiences something of a sexual awakening in the form of a paralysing crush on the high school heartthrob and a bizarrely burgeoning relationship with a roughneck school bully who perpetually threatens to rape her.
Relatively thin on plot, here greater emphasis is put upon character development and some fantastically memorable dialogue instead (‘Dawn! You are not leaving this table until you tell your sister that you love her!’?). Like with his recently released follow-up, Palindromes, director and writer Todd Solondz has extracted entertainment out of excruciating discomfort.
Any film in which rape is depicted as being as amusing as it is disturbing is clearly a twisted one and Welcome to the Dollhouse provides no exception. This is neither a cheerful coming-of-age movie nor the story of a girl with a heart of gold that happens to be trapped inside the body of a troll. It becomes apparent that Dawn is a complex, extremely flawed character that is often far from being likeable. Heather Matarazzo’s portrayal of a girl who is merely the product of a callously neglected upbringing is flawless and startlingly mature. However, judging by the message of this film (being really ugly is detrimental to all aspects of your life, including the way you behave) it may not have been so difficult for her to get into character.
[imdb: Heathers] (1989)
‘People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, “Now there’s a school that self-destructed, not because society didn’t care, but because the school was society.” Now that’s deep.’?
Scintillating dark, Heathers elevates itself over its 80s contemporaries with some sharp dialogue and astutely perceptive social commentary which looks at high school feudalism from an insider’s lofty perspective. Every possible high school social division is bitingly satirised in what appears to be an attack upon the concept of mindless conformity.
A very young Winona Ryder is our angsty yet remarkably clear-headed and likeable narrator. Fed up of the vacuous, bitchy clique of popular girls with which she has forged friendship in her attempt to stay afloat in the cutthroat world of the American High School, she sees a kindred spirit in a Jack Nicholson-esque newcomer, J.D (Christian Slater). Confiding to him her secret fantasies about knocking off her supposed best friend (the acid-tongued beauty Heather Chandler) proves to be a terrible mistake. The initially mildly rebellious J.D turns out to be a raving, Moby-Dick-quoting lunatic who kindly entangles her into a web of deceit and staged suicides that shake up the school.
Heathers is genuinely funny. Wonderfully bitchy one-liners (‘Well f*ck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Theresa?’?), amusingly deadpan reactions to grievous ills (‘Dear Diary, my teenage angst bullshit now has a body count’?) and utterly moronic parental units (guidance counsellor: ‘”Whether or not a teenager decides to kill themselves is the biggest decision of their life’?) lend the film both a sense of the macabre and a knowingly absurd quality. Costume and set design capture an era: the Heathers are clothed in the cutting edge of hideous 80s fashion from their enormous scrunchies down to their multi-tiered ra-ra skirts and J.D’s familial abode epitomises 1980s glossy, hollow decadence.
With its unusually dark theme by teen movie standards, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect a suitably ironic morbid ending but in this area, Heathers disappoints. Whilst not exactly walk-off-into-the-sunset idyllic, it is a little too tidy for a film which features a teen suicide epidemic. Optimistic ending notwithstanding, however, Heathers is highly recommended stuff.
Other teen movie greats:
[imdb: Rebel Without a Cause] (1955)
The original teen angst movie. The film that made James Dean in his rebellious red jacket an icon. Natalie Wood’s pair of bizarrely conical-shaped tits do not distract too much from the excellent action that unfolds.[imdb: Saved!] (2005)
Perhaps not as funny or as daring as it could have been, Saved! is set in a Christian high school and pokes fun at young, misguided fundamentalists. Still, this twist on the genre and the casting of Macaulay Culkin as a wheelchair-bound cynic does result in some moments of inspired comedy.[imdb: Clueless] (1995)
Student 1: (excusing herself from a school tennis lesson) Um, Ms. Stoeger? My plastic surgeon doesn’t want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose.
Student 2: Well, there goes your social life.
Thanks for that. I will definitely check out Dollhouse… Heathers, meanwhile! I have too many good things to say about that film! Thankyou for saying some of them for me. ‘Acid-tongued Heather Chandler’ made me spit on my screen though… didn’t they feed her bleach? Hahaha… one of the best jokes I’ve ever heard.