#71 - Smooth Talk

This one threw me for a loop because the most bizarre thing happens in this movie. And it's not a surreal, weird, or wacky sort of thing that happens. Its not anything gross, unusual, or disgustingly awful. It's basically one scene that stands out head and shoulders above the rest of the movie, and it caught me completely off guard, and floored me. I'll explain...

The premise of this movie is simple, Laura Dern plays a high school teenager who is spending her summer break learning all about male/female companionship. She basically acts like a floozy, not realizing what it is she is doing getting herself into trouble with her mother. Its a pretty typical case of fighting mother and daughter. Nothing new there. They fight. They say things they don't mean, but you know they really love each other, blah, blah, blah, blah. Really, I was not entertained at all watching this movie. I was annoyed by the way the girls acted in the mall. I was annoyed at the mother/daughter fights. I was annoyed by the oblivious father. It was not entertaining at all. I found myself wondering what the deal was with bracelets in the late 80's. I remember the fad, but I was only ten-ish, so the full impact of it was nothing to me. Seriously, how ridiculous of a fad was it to put about 150 metal bracelets on each arm? Or, as a substitute, three or four plastic ones. Thats a 50 to 1 conversion ratio. The plastic ones must be spendy.

Here's another thing in this movie that is one of the silliest things I have ever seen. Treat Williams acting like a tough guy. I know what your saying, Treat Williams acting like an actor is silly enough, but throw in tough guy on top of that, and its out of control. But this brings me to the point of the whole review. You see, early on in the movie, Laura Dern walks by Treat Williams and he singles her out, but then he goes away, never to be seen...until later. He shows up at Dern's house when her parents aren't home. I'm sure you can see where this is going. What follows is one of the most frightening and intense scenes I have seen in a while. I was sucked right in to the interaction between the two, not knowing what would happen, or exactly where it was going. I could not believe it.

That is what was so bizarre about this movie. I couldn't have cared less about the movie until that one scene came around and I was locked in. Then, there is an implication about what happens, the family comes home and everything is resolved quickly and the movie was over. That was it!!! Sixty-five minutes of crap, followed by a dynamic, riveting, and unbelievably intense twenty minute scene, and then five more minutes of crap. Movie over. What the hell is that? I can't recommend the movie because on the whole, it was lame. But that one scene is SO strong I want everybody to see it. But it's probably not as strong without seeing all of the lead-up to it, which is CRAPPY!!!! Paging Joseph Heller!! Paging Joseph Heller!!!