I Saw A Film!

The notion that somehow a dorky, verdant Andy McCarthy, freshly enrolled in a teen prep school, his glistening wet baby gaze, could somehow captivate the love energy of Jacqueline Bisset, is one of those common film mistakes that somehow is imagined Playboy fodder. But who is it intended for? About mid-way through the film we’re meant to realize that Bisset’s liquor chugging, bar babe didn’t realize her new lover was so young. Of course, it’s meant as a universal young-man fantasy usually satisfied by porn when finding appropriate partnership is too difficult or not practical. But the premise is hard to swallow. Bisset’s carousing mom can’t possibly be so vaguely simple, so the suggestion is that it’s her “thing”. Which would make it a very different story, and a weak variation on The Graduate.

Our characters, especially Rob Lowe’s prankster, are revealed to be well off and spoiled. Which has long been an curious sell, I suppose not unlike the ostentatious presentation of church. We don’t chase after our own class level, we’re awed by that of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. Hell, it’s likely all that got Trump elected to the presidency. Nothing about the businessman Burroughs, Lowe’s father, lends us a passion of what today would be played to the hilt as desirable extravagance. Strangely, their lovely black maid seems well adjusted and happy, she still asserts her charge of the young Lowe.

All the sequences between the boys at the school are totally forgettable. And include a boy trying to flush a pot plant down a toilet. Their moronic banter and the over-acted emotional stretches of exaggerated laughter and goofy noise of the kids. However, the hardest thing to take from the film is the tedious lack of control or explanation between the two pathetic “lovers”. Nothing is actually explored. Eighty minutes into a 100 minute film we’re still just doing this sit-com dance of avoiding the issue with hung up phones and poorly controlled arrested development. I will say that nothing much changes in McCarthy’s acting from this film on. He’s hired for the same injured roles over and over. For the first time I notice he’s a lefty.

Most of the last minutes of the film are dedicated to a poorly orchestrated fight sequence that at least doesn’t need to produce weaponry and remains like a kid fight. Nothing is resolved, we never learn exactly what the older lady’s slumming purpose is (or indeed if it’s just a fetish/kink) instead we’re just let in on the idea that she puts herself in rich people therapy. Did Mrs. Robinson do that? I think not!

This is running free on Prime (usa) and the fun part of the film is spotting the Cusacks (John gets to deliver the line, “Yeah, two fags!”), a Ruck and ole Angel from the Rockford Files.