Thursday, July 29, 2021
Smooth Talk
- Commentary: I watched this film a couple of months ago when I first received it. It was probably the one film in the batch that arrived that I was most excited to watch. I mean, Joyce Chopra as director? Teenage angst over sexuality? Laura Dern and Treat Williams? Of course I was on board.
Much is said about the yearning and excitability of naive, sexually awakening young women but nothing is explicit. Because of this, so much more is left unsaid. We are never told, for instance, what the details are of Connie Wyatt's partially forced, partially willing assignation with Arnold Friend, whose given name in the movie, by the way, I almost immediately began to doubt. Treat Williams plays Arnold's finagling touch with naivete so expertly that, although I was fearful for Connie when he visited her house and convinced her to go for a ride, I was a curious as she, remembering my own excitement and curiosity about men and sex when I was her age.
I purposely did not read anything in depth about the movie before I watched it. I wanted to wonder at the outcome of Connie's adventure, rather than know. Good choice because although she arrives back home, my heart had already sunk, pondering what happened to her and what she learned, and how perfectly this movie outlines the treachery of male sexuality in a patriarchal world. And, the fact that Connie perceives that she has no choice, being female, but to accept that treachery and attempt to negotiate around it, as all the women, especially the adult women, in her life do. Now, though, she's going to put that off, for awhile.
It is a deep, sobering, heartbreaking, on point film, but something tells me you have to be a woman to perceive this. Roger Ebert kind of got it, his review is attached to the title of this post, but, for all his sensitivity, not quite. He referred to Connie as "a certain kind of teenager". Oh, Roger, the point is, she's all teenage girls. Now. In this world. And for centuries before this.
One of my (many) final takes was, why, in the world, did Wonder Woman ever leave Themyscira, drowning man be damned, and, having left, why would she not return, immediately, whether or not she delivered her cargo safely? Turns out, although directed by a woman, Wonder Woman was written by men, three of them. Honeys, don't try to save the world of men. Leave it to its insane devices and let it destroy itself. You find a place to hide out in the meantime. Men are too entrenched, anymore, to learn and you are too valuable to risk destruction in order to teach.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Treat Williams Arnold Friend Laura Dern Connie Wyatt Mary Kay Place Katherine Wyatt Margaret Welsh Laura Sara Inglis Jill Levon Helm Harry Wyatt Elizabeth Berridge June Wyatt Geoff Hoyle Ellie
Here's the link to Wikipedia's write-up to this film.
Release Date: 1985
Directed by Joyce Chopra.
Labels: Criterion3, female-director1
