Customer Reviews

Smooth Talk [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Based upon a short story by Joyce Carol Oates (Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?), Smooth Talk stars a lovely Laura Dern in her first 'big' role. Dern plays a young woman, Connie, who is at the difficult time in her life when she is making the transition between girl and woman. She meets a attractive yet slightly scary older man played by Treat Williams.

I suppose the plot could have been handled in a lurid, trite manner, but the direction by Joyce Chopra, as well as the fine acting by Ms. Dern and Williams, make this film rise above what could have been a fairly pedestrian effort in lesser hands.

We've all been in Connie's world, the world that suddenly presents itself when the tie to one's parents begins to loosen. We watch, and cringe, at some of the choices Connie and her friends face, waiting and hoping that all turns out well when she makes some poor decisions. Williams plays Arnold Friend ("A Friend") to unctuous perfection. In the story, he's 30 but tries to acts 18; Williams fits right in.

I'm not going to give away the ending, but let's just say that Connie's parents have real reason to be concerned about their daughter and the choices she makes. The film does end differently than the short story.

James Taylor was the film's music director, and some of his classic music is prominently displayed here.

BTW, this film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1986. It's a shame that a excellent film such as this just seems to slip through the cracks. A DVD is really in order.

Very highly Recommended! Get this film!

(A post script. I just learned (November 28, 2004) from the Ebert and Roper review program that Smooth Talk will be coming out on DVD!!!!!

Thanks to the person who made this possible. I have a VHS copy that was a video store reject.)

I am a senior citizen but this story and the acting brought up the feelings of when I was a teenager. A real tour de force IMO of what happens to a young girl and her awakening..the manipulation. The confused thoughts that are going thru her mind.

Old or young viewer can feel the emotion in both Treet Williams and Laura Dern as she both struggles with good and bad while he twists and turns to control her.

A small slice of life, but true and with excellent feeling.

I watched this movie when it premired on PBS in 1987. As a 16 year old girl, it totally meant something to me. What girl didn't sneak out and try out sexy clothes to see how she could entice a boy? What girl didn't find herself in an awkward situation with a boy? Girls of this era did run around the mall shrieking and flirting with boys. (I know I did!). Mothers warned of "that" type of boy who might hurt you, but they could never fully explain who "that" boy might be. Now that I'm older, I cringe at Connie's immaturity and how naive she is. 16 was the age where you thought you knew it all and could take care of yourself, until you ended up left alone in a movie theater parking lot. The chracter of Connie was about as selfish as they come, but what 16 year old doesn't think the world revolves around them? Laura Dern has fantastic body language and you can feel her awkwardness coming through the screen. The end was terrifying to me -- was she raped ot not? (Although, at 16, I naively assumed she just went on a car ride with Arnold! Yikes!) It wasn't until college that I actually read the short story and was horrified by the ending. Were we cheated in the movie? Hard to decide, but it wouldn't have been a coming of age movie if it had the true ending. Mary Kay Place was stunning as the bitter mom and Levon Helm was great as the simple dad. ("This is tuna fish!" "My own lawn chair, leave it out all night if I want"). The soundtrack -- James Taylor -- leaves a lot to be desired. However, you will hear Frankie and the Knockouts when Connie sings, "You don't want me....". A movie that represents the 80's well and a wonderful springboard for the WONDERFUL Laura Dern!

A neglected masterpiece by a gifted director whose subsequent career was consigned to TV movies and series episodes.

Smooth Talk is one of the few films ever made whose climactic scene takes place on the borderline between reality and the imagination. That scene is done so beautifully by Dern and Treat Williams that one never forgets it. But the whole movie is full of wonderful moments.

For instance, after her first fight with her mother (and the sparks that fly between Dern and Mary Kay Place every time their eyes meet capture the hormones-versus-hormones explosiveness of adolescence versus middle age marvelously) Dern walks through a fruit orchard. This is Chopra's way of hinting to us that the Garden of Eden, the loss of innocence, lies behind the story.

The parents are house-poor, having had enough money to buy the house three years ago but not to decorate it. The inside is a chaos of paint cans, ladders, strips of wallpaper. This mirrors the chaos inside the emotions of the developing girl.

We learn during one of the mother-daughter quarrels that Connie's birth was an accident, that she was not wanted. This is a key to her conflict with her mother.

Chopra is a genius with focus. The three girls are seen perhaps fifteen feet from the camera, with everything behind them out of focus. Many of the outdoor scenes use focus in a creative way.

She is also a genius with light. When Jill comes to visit Connie in the dining room, the light on Connie's face is pure Vermeer, albeit coming from the right instead of the left.

The first time the girls see Frank's Restaurant, the long convertible of Arnold Friend passes them as he pulls into the parking lot. This is our introduction to Friend, who will be Connie's loss of innocence.

The first boy Connie meets at Frank's twirls on his bar stool like a child. He takes her out under the stars (not without Arnold Friend murmuring to her "I'm watching you" as they leave the restaurant) and she is filled with longing. "I wish I could just travel somewhere..." The second boy, more mature, takes her to an underground parking lot, a stark contrast. He is all business, and his caresses frighten her.

The first regression to innocence after sexual experimentation is Connie's offer to help her mother paint the house the next day. We see her holding the paint brush, then drifting into adolescent reverie. The scene ends, of course, with more conflict with her mother.

A possible bond between mother and daughter is shown during Jill's visit, when Connie plays James Taylor's "Handyman" on the record player in the dining room. Connie is swaying to the music with blatantly sexual movements that upset Jill, while Mother in the kitchen is also swaying to the song.

The introduction to the almost mystical approach of Arnold Friend is when the family has gone to a picnic and Connie hears Bobby King on her portable radio. The music is suddenly heard much louder from outside the house, and she turns to see Arnold Friend's car approaching.

Friend seduces Connie through a screen door, which is a perhaps too obvious hymenal symbol. Treat Williams' body language, from the moment he gets out of the car, is a key to the entire scene and must have been thought through carefully by Chopra. He is alternately playful and threatening. His dialogue consists entirely in the argument: "You were waiting for me, today is our date, your whole life has been leading to this moment of you giving yourself to me. Your family is nothing, your house is nothing." He sees the seduction as a fait accompli, and indeed it is, in the sense that all of Connie's tentative attempts at promiscuity have been leading to this moment of being possessed.

Curiously, the light suddenly changes as Friend is sitting on the car. The sunny day is gone, the sky is now cloudy. This probably was a result of a low TV budget, but it almost looks intentional. The whole world changes now that Friend has arrived.

Friend displays an astonishing (and perhaps imaginary) omniscience about what is happening at the family picnic far away. "They're cleaning the corn -- no, they're husking the corn. Hot dogs cooked to bursting over the fire..."

A wonderful moment: Friend observes that his friend Ellie Oscar, sitting in the car, is "strange." Connie says, "Kind of strange," and Friend's eyes dart to her with a significant look, measuring her compliance.

When Connie retreats from the screen door and says "Don't come in," Friend replies, "the plan is not for me to come in where I don't belong, but for you to come out here to me. No screen door, no house can keep us apart." There is no coercion. The impulse comes from within the girl. This is, I think, the essence of the movie and of the Joyce Carol Oates story. What appears to be a sort of rape is actually the fulfillment of a fantasy. This is why, after being initially terrified by the situation, Connie walks coolly through the door to Friend's car. "What if my eyes were green?"

The coitus is not shown, and in fact may not have happened.

When the family comes home and Connie goes to her bedroom with her sister, she says, "A man asked me to go for a ride, and I went." To which she quickly adds, "Maybe I didn't go. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe I'm going out of my mind."

The second and final regression to innocence is Connie now asking her sister to dance with her. "I mean, you wouldn't like feel defiled by touching me?" They dance to "Handyman" and as they hug the scene fades out.

Like Polanski's REPULSION, this movie takes us into the mind of the protagonist, and the climactic scene has the power of dream while perhaps not having happened at all.

An intricate, disturbing film classic. Made with funds from American Playhouse, Executive Producer Lindsay Law.

I teach English and writing at a community college and used Smooth Talk in contrast to the short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates.

Except for the ending, the film follows the original work but also explores more fully the relationships in Connie's life. Given that the movie first aired in 1986, it is unlikely that the public would have accepted onscreen a depiction of the violence inflicted by Arnold in Oates' version.

While discussing the short story, my students and I engaged in an electrifying exchange of ideas about Connie's innocence or lack thereof. All cited from the text to support their positions, most of which argued that she was sexually active and used her beauty to attract older boys.

Another student and I took the opposite position with equally strong evidence and passion. The movie resolves this issue when Arnold tells Connie that he knows she is a virgin.

For their research paper, students chose one of three topics, a biography of Oates, the true story behind the fictional work, and Smooth Talk, all done on line and properly cited and sourced.

The final project consisted of teams of three - one member from each topic - teaching the class via a multi-media, ten-minute presentation, again properly cited and sourced.

Based on the energy, interest, and quality of the work, this two-part assignment was the best educational experience of the course.

For full details, see homepage.mac.com/mr_connolly

Refer to Materials > Research Project.

While I felt that the end result was far from bad, there are a lot of things within `Smooth Talk' that I just don't like; bringing the film down to mediocre at best. It's not that there aren't stellar moments, especially within the performances, but overall I felt that the film's construction was weak and thus the overall film is weak.

I have not read the short story from which this film is adapted, so I cannot say how faithful (plenty of reviews say otherwise) it is, and so that is not one of my complaints. In fact, most all my issues are technical ones. Like, for instance, the music was a horrid choice. It gave it an almost B-Movie feel, or worse yet, a soap opera feel. Speaking of, the films pace and construction made it feel like a made for TV movie; like a `Lifetime' movie of sorts. It never feels genuine but carries a layer of camp to it. Speaking of (second use of that phrase), the final moments which are supposed to illicit some sort of fear and or misery tend to be overdone (especially on the part of Treat Williams who is just annoying) and so that dread is absent, leaving way for camp to set it.

Anyways, the film tells of young fifteen year old Connie who discovers herself at a local burger place. Well, I guess that is over simplifying it a bit. She lives in the shadow of her older, perfect sister and she suffers under the sharp eye of her defeated mother. She feels hated and alone and so this moves her to act out, seeking attention from boys who find her attractive and deem her rather easy.

The film moves around at an almost stagnant pace for a while, allowing us to see Connie in various compromising situations without really letting anything happen that sustains our interest. Then all of a sudden this guy who we have seen briefly throughout the film makes his advancements to Connie in a rather strange way and we are supposed to be drawn into her ultimate decision.

Sad to say I wasn't.

The bright spots here come in the form of Laura Dern and Mary Kay Place who make the very most of their clichéd characters. As the overbearing mother and the rebellious teenager they do good, keeping us interested (as best they can) and delivering memorable performances. The rest of the cast is either forgettable or laughable (see Treat Williams). I can't say I'd recommend this to anyone any time soon, but a most people seem to either love or hate this film, so if you are one of the ones who loves it than great for you. I don't hate it, but I surely don't love it.

The cinematography is a real pleasure for the eye. Some of the scenes of the old farmhouse, the sky, and Connie (Laura Dern) just sitting on a porch swing doing nothing but musing to herself are exquisitely composed.

There are some awkward scenes in this film version of the famous Joyce Carol Oates story, "Where are you going? Where have you been?", mainly because the original short story was set in the 1950's and the film is set in the 1980's thus the James Dean posters in Connie's room, the fact that Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) is a James Dean look-a-like who drives a muscle car, and that all the high school kids hang out at the local drive-in seem out of place in the 1980's. And yet, even with the anachronisms, as an evocation of a certain time of life it still works.

Granted, most of the film is pretty much just a set up for the climactic smooth talking seduction scene that arrives very late in the film but that one scene is tremendous and well worth the wait.

The film does not go where the Oates' story went, rather it leaves things up in the air and allows the viewer to interpret the climactic scene in a number of ways. The not knowing whether anything did happen or not is strangely powerful though (and, as others have mentioned, Oates' herself approved of the ending).

My take on the ending: Its as if Connie has come up against someone capable of voicing and embodying her own inner desires and this experience allows her to confront as well as get a handle on the exact nature of those desires. So, its a coming-of-age moment (but one that may or may not have just been a fantasy).

The film has some definite weaknesses, but recommended because there are a handful of scenes that do capture that moment (here the summer between freshman and sophomore year) when some teenagers feel like they are ready to cross a certain threshold, but wise enough to realize that they are really not ready to actually cross it all the way. This film, cleverly, gives the viewer that exhilerating and frightening thrill of crossing into forbidden territory without actually having to go there.

So, recommended, but with a few qualifications.

Adapted from the short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been", by Joyce Carol Oates; this slow paced and moody film is for those who like introspective stories where you spend a lot of the viewing time in self-analysis rather than character identification. The mood is complemented by a lot of James Taylor on the soundtrack with "Handyman" repeated several times.

It is also one of those "axe to grind" films where fans of the short story feel compelled to whine about the adaptation not being faithful to their interpretation of the book, although Oates endorses it without reservation on her website. Any non-readers considering viewing "Smooth Talk" would be wise to remember the source when reading negative comments from this group.

To reach feature length it was necessary to expand on the short story and to dramatically depict events that are just briefly mentioned in the original version. Everything is still told from the point-of-view of 15-year-old Connie, increasingly estranged from her mother and marveling at her new-found attractiveness to boys. Fans of Laura Dern who have not seen this should seek it out as she gives an remarkable performance, arguably her all time best. Perfectly cast physically as a gangly coming of age teenager Dern plays Connie with such restraint and awkward hesitancy that anyone with acting for the camera aspirations should view this simply as a perfect example of the power that can be produced by underplaying a character.

The ending is restrained as well, making it unexpectedly powerful and haunting. They go out with Connie and her sister slowly dancing to "Handyman", leaving the viewer to process what has been shown and what has been implied.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Since I read Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" many years ago as a teenager myself (many Oates' works were translated to Russian - she was and I hope still is very popular there), I've been fascinated by it. I've read many Oates's stories and some of her novels but the 10 pages long story of 15 years old Connie, "shallow, vain, silly, hopeful, doomed-- but capable nonetheless of an unexpected gesture of heroism at the story's end" has stuck in my memory and I could never forget it. I was shocked to find out what the real story behind the fictional was.

When I found out that the story was adapted to the screen, I tried to find the movie, "Smooth Talk" (1985) directed by Joyce Chopra and I saw it finally last weekend. A disturbing coming of age drama, the winner of The Grand Jury Prize at 1986 features 18 years-old Laura Dern who appears innocent, gawky, and provocative all at once. Laura owns the film as a sultry woman-child who just began to realize the power of her sexual attractiveness during one long summer that would change her life forever. It does not surprise me a bit that Dern's next movie would be David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" where she played sweet and innocent Sandy and in a few years she would play her best role, Lula Fortune in his "Wild at Heart" (1990). The more I think of Laura, the more I see her as one of the most talented actresses of her generation. She is fearless in taking sometimes unflattering roles and she never lost that aura of innocence wrapped in irresistible sexuality that made her Connie in "Smooth Talk" so alive and unforgettable.

I use this in a college literature course as a means of clarifying and analyzing Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" which is, in and of itself, a CREEPY story -- especially for teens! Smooth Talk is the adaptation of that work and is pretty well done -- it holds the attention of modern-day teens which is saying something. Even though time has changed technology, the subjects of acceptance and teen-parent relationships is timeless. It's certainly an "oldie" but had managed to hold onto its relevance (Thanks to Oates).