Thoughts on Smooth Talk

 

via Criterion Collection

"I look at you, I look right in your eyes ... and all I see are a bunch of trashy daydreams."

(Connie (Laura Dern), recipient of a major dismissal by mom Katherine (Mary Kay Place), is later warned about the consequences of promiscuity. She takes the opportunity to also hit below the belt.)

"You were none too careful yourself, were you? Like you're some example to try to tell me. *is slapped* ... You make me wanna laugh."

My first job was at a mall that had seen better days. You walk through it and feel like the last man on earth. It was located near another, more successful mall. Behind my mall, across a busy road, was a Barnes & Noble. I used to jaywalk across that road when I wanted to go shopping, even though my parents warned me not to do that. They rarely said anything, but they sure as hell knew. A few years later, about the time I belatedly got my driver's license, they closed the store and moved it to the better mall, which you could get to by using the crosswalk. They also got rid of the used section. I'm not sure which of the two took away more of my fun.

Seeing Connie and her friend Laura (Margaret Welsh) trying to play it cool about sneaking around was a Proustian experience. There's so much in Smooth Talk, directed by Joyce Chopra and adapted by Tom Cole from Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", that resonates more powerfully outside of one's teen years. The movie doesn't lionize either being carefree or maturity. It seems to understand that each has illusionary qualities and that everything, whether affection between parents and youth or a person's self-confidence, can instantly change. Talk was an expansion of Oates' story, albeit with a new ending, one Oates said reflected a sense of reconciliation and rejuvenation.

"Going ... Been?" and Talk were two things I first experienced in college. I also engaged with the idea of actually being redeemed. A professor said it's not as simple as it sounds and involves a process of being thoroughly shaped. There's absolutely nothing in Talk to suggest this, but I found myself thinking about Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) being a demon. I see that Chopra ultimately cut dialogue making it clear that he did rape Connie. Either way, though, he committed the monstrous act of coercing her out of her home while presenting it as a seduction. No matter what happened in his car, she fell from grace. Talk, to its credit, didn't look down on Connie before Friend's visit and it doesn't look down on her after.

"I mean, it's not what you think. I'd never do that. It's just ... the boys are so nice to you. When we're together ... I never knew it was gonna be so nice. Did you ever have a boy hold you close and sing to you? This one boy, Eddie ... he sang to me right in my ear. And he held me so sweetly. June, don't you know how that feels? Just to be held like that?"

"I wonder if you know what a little bitch you are."

"What did I say wrong?"

"You're gonna have it all, aren't you? And you think you deserve it."

Elizabeth Berridge (as June, Connie's older and apparently more introverted sister), Levon Helm (as Harry, the father and seemingly the closest thing Connie has to an outright ally), Welsh and Sara Inglis (as Jill, who ends up on the outs with Connie) are all fine, but the real supporting dynamo is Place. Seriously, the only thing better would be if Katherine was her first role after Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, to drive home the point that yes, this is an actress with some power to her. It's fascinating -- and heartbreaking -- to watch two people with an awful lot in common be so apart. I saw it between my mom and grandma (and it never got better) and for a long time, I feared it'd be that way between my dad and me. Sorry for all the personal talk, but Talk is the kind of movie that inspires self-reflection.

Pauline Kael felt Chopra and Cole went conventional at the end. "(They suggest) that Connie has grown up -- matured -- via what amounts to terrorization and (possibly) rape," she wrote. "The experience seems to have made her a better person." I don't think Connie's experience with Friend has made her a better person, or that she is one as the movie ends. I think she has the capability of being one, but there's going to be a redemption period. Anyway, I was blown away by Dern's performance on this rewatch. Not to take away from Williams, but I was more than alright with watching Connie navigate through the minefield that is everyday life. One moment she's practicing flirty conversation in the mirror, then she's wounded by her mom's criticism. A little later, she's not at all ready to lose her virginity.

Not too long ago, I reviewed Dreamchild, another movie involving a woman's molestation of sorts. As I mentioned, the movie evoked memories of certain Sondheim songs. The same happens with Talk. If Connie could see where she's going (or has been), then she'd know she's already gone. Naturally, for a long time in Talk, she doesn't have such a view. Life's not really like that at 15. It's one foot in front of the other, take the escalator, check out the boys, bicker, banter and bullshit, with maybe some defiance.

"My sweet little blue-eyed girl." "What if my eyes were brown?"

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Connie, you are a disgrace." "But a lot of laughs."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $17,000 on (if I did the conversion right) a $1.1 million budget, this came in at No. 178 for 1985.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "In this age of movies designed to satisfy teenagers' fantasies about themselves, Smooth Talk has the shock value of The Grapes of Wrath seen among a bunch of not-great screwball comedies of the Depression era," Vincent Canby wrote. "Almost uncanny in its self-assurance, in the way it knows that the first hour, where 'nothing' happens, is necessary if the payoff is to be tragic, instead of merely sensational," according to Roger Ebert.

-- Critic's Corner, the actors: Dern was "smashing" although Williams nearly stole the movie from her, according to Canby. Place seemed "a touch too uptown" for her part, Rita Kempley wrote. "Treat Williams gives a neo-Method performance that's all affectation," according to Kael.

-- Awards Watch: This received a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, as well as Spirit Award nominations for itself, Chopra, Cole, Dern and Williams.

-- I could make out that Katherine and Elizabeth were reading McCall's and Woman's Day before going to the barbecue, but I can't 100 percent identify the issues. For what it's worth, the September 1985 issue of McCall's had Elizabeth Taylor on the cover. If anyone chose it intentionally, they did a great job. Not only would be have another distinction between Katherine's everyday existence and the idea of glamour, but Elizabeth Taylor was also older and wiser, living without Burton and with sobriety.

-- Memorable Music: The score is 64-51, with points for three submissions not written for the movie. "Is That the Way You Look?" and "Handy Man" by James Taylor and "Crusin' Love" by Rachel Sweet.

-- Hey, It's the Mid-Eighties!: "Oates surely didn't envision her original work as a harrowing glimpse into mall culture, though it fits surprisingly well into the story's texture," Jesse Hassenger wrote for The A.V. Club.

-- "And Connie, no matter who you were with last night ... today you're with Arnold Friend, and don't you forget it."

-- Next: Trouble in Mind. On deck: A Chorus Line and Chicago. Coming soon: My Best and Worst Awards.