DIRECTED BY Betty Thomas
STARRING Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush
US 2006 87 mins.
SAMARITAN GIRL **
DIRECTED BY Kim Ki-duk
STARRING Kwak Ji-min, Eol Lee, Seo Min-jeong
In Korean, with Greek subtitles.
South Korea 2005 95 mins.
Hollywood needs teenagers more than teenagers need Hollywood. Someday they’ll figure this out, and the so-called ‘dream factory’ will be in trouble – but till then they’re happy to follow like sheep, paying good money for the latest bit of fluffy cotton-candy. It wouldn’t occur to most teens to go see a Korean film at the Friends of the Cinema Society – but the Friday-night crowd was out in force for John Tucker Must Die, a lively teen comedy that gets a couple of laughs but leaves no residue. Like its title, it talks tougher than it is.
Why should a teen comedy be tough in the first place? I can think of three reasons. First, because high-school (where Tucker is set) is such fertile territory for pitiless satire, as proved by films like Heathers (1989) and Election (1999). Second, because the unspoken pact between Hollywood and its teen audience amounts to unhealthy pandering. Keep watching our films, say the studios, and in return we’ll make you look good; even ‘hard-edged’ teenpics like Mean Girls (2004) flatter their audience by comparing high-school to a “jungle” (relax, kids; it’s only high-school). Third, because when John Tucker gets tough – as it does in the early scenes – it’s actually quite funny.
The film is malicious and sometimes delicious, positing John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) as a sneering high-achiever – star of the basketball team, male-model handsome and a shameless Lothario, carrying on with three girls at the same time. They find out, resulting in a brawl; someone points out the unfortunate innuendo in being “head cheerleader” and someone else asserts – accurately, I suspect – that being a vegan teen activist is usually code for being easy. Fortunately, loser nice-girl Kate (Brittany Snow) intervenes, which is when a plan is hatched; make John Tucker fall in love with Kate, then break his heart.
The plot is by way of Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and especially In the Company of Men (1997), the notorious dark comedy about two men setting out to destroy a woman. The other complication is that Kate gets corrupted by being turned into a vamp, so the film could in theory have ended with two dislikeable people instead of one. Alas, it does exactly the opposite. Kate doesn’t really change at all (despite everyone saying “You’ve become so different”), whether because Ms. Snow is quite a limited actress – she’s unconvincing when supposed to be irresistible – or just because the film is dishonest. Instead, John Tucker changes, deliquescing from a macho bastard into a lovelorn puppy-dog.
By the end, we have two likeable people instead of one and John Tucker Must Die becomes sappy verging on tedious. It’s downright depressing watching these cookie-cutter teenpics file the edge off everything, like an over-protective parent muffling their child’s ears at every loud noise. We even get the immutable law of high-school movies – at least in Hollywood – that Like always ends up with Like, so John Tucker gets a Sensitive Loser brother for Kate to hook up with in the final reel.
The film earns a couple of laughs but leaves no residue. It’s pleasant but it lives only fleetingly, in stray lines and incidental details. A fight in the gym between warring babes in volleyball regalia gets increasingly wild – then screeches to a momentary halt with a shot of immaculately posed, makeup-and-eyeliner Goths watching impassively from the sidelines. It’s not much, but it made me smile.
Fast-forward to Korea, where teenage girls do a lot more than trade bitchy wisecracks and plot to make people “undatable”. The girls in Samaritan Girl are amateur prostitutes, sleeping with strange men they meet over the Internet so they can raise money for a trip to Europe; Jae-young does the actual lovemaking, Yeo-jin fixes the appointments and looks out for the cops. They actually have a lot of fun, scrubbing each other in the bath after each ‘session’ and poking their heads out from behind matching statues like a pair of Disney heroines.
In fact, there are tensions. Yeo-jin – whose father is a cop – hates the men her friend sleeps with, and hates the way she tries to be nice to them; we get the sense she’s secretly jealous, and wouldn’t mind switching places if only she dared. Then there’s a tragedy – for which Yeo-jin is partly to blame – and she does switch places, only reversing the process: she tracks down all the men Jae-young slept with, sleeps with them herself, then returns their money. It’s as though, by reversing the hooker-client relationship, she somehow hopes to reverse what happened.
The film links sex and miracles from its earliest scenes. Jae-young talks of sex having spiritual properties, and styles herself after a legendary Indian courtesan whose bedroom skills were reputedly so inspirational she turned every john into a faithful Buddhist. Our heroine’s sexual crusade is coded (not least in the title) as a force for Good; “We must all live together in harmony,” sighs one of the clients in post-coital bliss, while another is moved to call up his daughter.
Obviously this stuff is transgressive (and a little exploitative). Obviously – or hopefully – it’s as far removed from ordinary teenage life as the bubblegum hi-jinks of John Tucker Must Die. Nor does ‘dark’ automatically equal better. Nonetheless, Samaritan Girl looks like it might go in an interesting direction – at least till it goes in a different direction altogether, shifting from the girl’s sexual journey to her Dad’s shocked reaction. The second (of three) chapters is all about him, which isn’t very interesting since he just broods a lot and occasionally lapses into violence. The final chapter then brings father and daughter together, but again it’s rather dull – the apparent message being that he should stop playing Heavy Father and just learn to let go, with driving lessons acting as a symbol of her coming-of-age.
In the end, both films disappoint – but there’s a difference. Samaritan Girl turns away from its teen protagonist, which is only right and proper. After all, it’s made by a 44-year-old man – director Kim Ki-duk, best-known for the splendid Buddhist fable Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring (2003) – and it might’ve seemed a little creepy had he focused on teenage girls having sex (however spiritual) for an hour and a half. Kim identifies with the father, and is honest enough to pursue that connection. That he doesn’t quite flesh out the character only makes the film an honourable failure.
John Tucker Must Die is different, and more insidious. Here’s a film made with teens, for teens, staying in a teenage milieu yet making it progressively blander and phonier. The people behind it don’t identify with high-schoolers, any more than Kim Ki-duk does, but they don’t have the grace to withdraw – and instead disguise their apathy by thinning and diluting the material into clean, innocuous mush, another neatly-wrapped generic sausage from the Hollywood sausage factory. The teens of the world deserve better.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 (Collec
tor’s Edition): First-class blockbuster in predictably fine 2-disc package, including commentary by Tom Cruise and director J.J. Abrams, 5 deleted scenes, featurettes and more. [US/UK]
MAREBITO: Japanese horror from the director of ‘The Grudge’, all about “the horror of obsession and madness”. Spooky! Extras include a director interview. [UK]
EDMOND: If the words “Written by David Mamet” mean anything to you, you’ll know exactly what to expect from this twisty thriller starring William H. Macy. If not … enjoy! Includes deleted scenes and commentary. [US]
CHANGING TIMES: Catherine Deneuve and G?rard Depardieu in subtle romantic drama. Starry! [US]
SHAMELESS: SERIES 3: Featuring “the Chatsworth Estate’s Gallaghers, probably the UK’s most dysfunctional family”.
OLD FILMS
MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECES: A good week for box sets: here’s five famous films on five discs, for about $35 plus shipping! Four are based on pre-20th-century novels – ‘David Copperfield’ (1935), ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (1936), ‘Treasure Island’ (1934) and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1940) – the fifth is ‘Marie Antoinette’ (1938), presumably tying in with Sofia Coppola’s new version. Superb extras including shorts and cartoons, though only ‘Copperfield’ is a classic movie per se. [US]
THE DEFINITIVE EALING STUDIOS COLLECTION: A big investment, but actually excellent value: £100 for 16 films, including all the famous Ealing comedies – ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’ (1949), ‘Passport to Pimlico’ (1949), ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ (1951), ‘The Ladykillers’ (1955) – as well as surprises like the classic ghost story ‘Dead of Night’ (1945) and hugely-underrated WW2 drama ‘Went the Day Well?’ (1942). Most are also available individually. [UK]
THE NEO-REALIST COLLECTION: Another great UK deal! Five Italian masterpieces for £28, including a couple of the greatest films ever: ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948) and ‘Umberto D’ (1953). Others are ‘Rome Open City’ (1945), ‘Miracle in Milan’ (1951) and ‘I Vitelloni’ (1953), most with decent extras. Films also available individually. [UK]
HOLLYWOOD’S LEGENDS OF HORROR COLLECTION: Yet another box-set: here’s six films for under $30 (plus shipping), all Gothic chillers from the 1930s. Highlights include ‘Mad Love’ (1935), with Peter Lorre finding out his new hands are those of a murderer; ‘The Devil Doll’ (1936), with people shrunk to miniature size; and the insanely racist (but fun) ‘Mask of Fu Manchu’ (1932). No extras. [US]
BODY HEAT (1981): New ‘Deluxe Edition’ of luscious neo-noir, including “Lifted Scenes” and vintage interviews with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. [US]
THE ADDAMS FAMILY: VOL. 1 (1964) and BEWITCHED: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON (1967): Ah, nostalgia…
