It's better than it has a right to be. Kimberley Joyce (Wood) with "the face of an angel" persuades two of her classmates to sue for sexual advances a disliked English and Drama teacher at their elite high school, so that his reputation is ruined (even if they lose, as Wood figures out) and they achieve an early boost in their career goals as actresses.
It's pretty witty in a teen-age comedy kind of way but rather murkier. "All it takes to become an actress is beauty, talent, and the willingness to sleep with somebody you otherwise wouldn't." And: "Listen to me carefully. (Silence) That's the sound of me not caring." And Wood's father (James Woods) having his filthy phone conversation interrupted when his wife walks in, and being forced to improvise a harmless conversation. "Yeah, yeah. Okay, Heshie. Shalom. Right, I'll see you at, uhh, at the mezzuzah." The direction, the editing, and the innovative musical score all combine to give a further gloss to the performers and the script.
Elitism, wealth, adolescent jealousy, publicity seeking, shallow beauty, a lack of morals, selfishness, the media, air headed ambition, reckless parents, the law, political correctness, homosexual intrigue -- all are pinned to the board with the precision of a dead butterfly.
But, man, it's dark. One of the three girls, having brought shame to her strict, devout Palestinian immigrant family, shoots herself, leaving a message behind on the chalk board: "We are all sinners," in Arabic. No one emerges from the plot unsinged.
And the reason for it all? Here the movie falls apart, during the last few minutes. It switches from a critique of our values to a more traditional tale with Wood the evil mastermind who plotted everyone's doom. "The world is an orchestra and I feel like the conductor." There's no nudity in the film, but it's pretty raunchy. The dialog is vulgar too. "I'd guess that munching underage rug is a good way to get fired." But much of the wit depends exactly on that sexuality and vulgarity. These are three fifteen-year-old girls, barely out of their adolescent growth spurt, and they know ALL ABOUT IT. It's scary. They know more about it than I knew when I was -- well, let's see -- when I was SIXteen! They've managed to pass from being innocent to being jaded without ever having gone through any period of florescence. They are so clever. Asked to explain a loud anti-Semitic remark ("At least my father isn't a money-grubbing shyster Jew lawyer!"), Wood looks remorseful and says, "My father is a racist. I guess I picked it up at home." Her interrogator nods his head -- "It always starts with the parents." I had to listen carefully because she has a tendency to speak in hasty bursts with a valley accent, like a small motorcycle revving up or a German MG42 firing. All kinds of inconvenient phonemes are eleded. "I still feel bad" comes out as "I stuffle bed." Wood is a beautiful young woman, of course, but although James Woods has a small role I think it may be his best film performance to date. He is hilarious, whether exploding with anger or squirming, but it sounds utterly believable. He has a theory that his new Jewish colleagues are sending signals in Yiddish to one another and disguising them as coughing spells -- and he gives a side-splitting imitation. The movie, alas, loses its grip at the end and goes for pathos.
The movie isn't aimed only at teenagers, thank God, although they'll probably like it and find at least some of it familiar. But they'll mostly miss some of the film's points, like the characters themselves, which attuned adults will not. Kind of a cross between "Clueless" and "Heathers."
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