from New York Times, 11 June 1989

New York Times, 11 June 1989, Section 2, p.1+19+31

Winona Ryder and Shannen Doherty in the movie "Heathers" Fred Savage and Danica McKellar in the TV series "The Wonder Years"—Kid stuff can be a tall order for adult.

Growing Up Is Hard to Put in Focus

Recent films illustrate the difficulty of capturing adolescence.

By CARYN JAMES

SEVEN HIGH-SCHOOL BOYS AT A STERN prep school sneak off to a midnight-dark cave to read Whitman and Thoreau. Their wholesome, Huckleberry Finn rebellion in Peter Weir's new film, "Dead Poets Society," carries the faintest echo of Mr. Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock," his 1975 film about three students and a teacher who vanish during a girls' school outing to the craggy Australian countryside on Valentine's Day of 1900. "Hanging Rock" perfectly captures its period, with striking images of girls in white frocks clambering up hills and over rocks. Yet its ominous atmosphere and aura of Victorian repression also evokes the never-changing, subterranean sexual awakening of adolescence.

So when the boys in "Dead Poets Society" enter their cave, emulating the nonconformist teacher played by Robin Williams, the scene should carry a comparable feel of adolescent discovery. But these surreptitious meetings have all the force of yesterday's Hollywood formula. The film's neat mix of types — the shy boy, the creative boy, the boy pressured by a grinchlike father — exist so far from the shadowy landscape of "Hanging Rock" that these boys might as well be meeting in a plastic cave.

Mr. Weir's success and failure suggest how difficult it is for a mainstream film to bring adolescence to the screen. From "Rebel Without a Cause" to Amy Heckerling's underrated 1982 film, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," movies that capture some truth about teenagers have fearlessly rejected formulas. Like the moody "Hanging Rock," which refuses to solve its mystery or bring its erotic rumblings to the surface, the best have styles as brash and reckless as youth itself. But among recent films on the subject — including "Dead Poets Society," "Say Anything" and "Heathers" — only "Heathers" shares the subversive freshness of its subject.

Though "Dead Poets Society" and "Say Anything" try to praise teen-age nonconformists, these conventional films work against their own rebellious messages. And as they react against the Wall Street aspirations of buttoned-down yuppies, they seem a beat behind the times, now that 60's nostalgia seems to have overtaken investment banking in high-school dreams.

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"Dead Poets Society," in fact, is out of touch with any particular time at all. Set in an American prep school in 1959, it contains anachronisms such as the slangy, ungrammatical "I could care less." Its period is marked primarily by shots of a few old cars. The film seems aimed at 1980's conservatism, for as the English teacher with the too-poetic name John Keating, Robin Williams must convince his class that poetry is as important as preparing for medical school. The film's intriguing assumption is that 17-year-old boys must be urged to rebel.

None of the film's countless flaws are Mr. Williams's fault. His tempered performance makes Keating's sincerity and charismatic appeal totally convincing, and he can't be blamed for a script that doesn't begin to explore this character. But if the film suffers from its underwritten hero, it is harmed just as much by its villains — the stereotypically stern headmaster, the prissy textbook introduction to poetry that Keating makes his students tear out of their books, the student's father who exhibits Dickensian meanness. Nonconformity means nothing because conformity is made of straw men.

"Say Anything" champions nonconformity in a similarly glib way. And it is also disappointing because its first-time director, Cameron Crowe, wrote the screenplay for "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," after first passing himself off as a student at a California high school in order to write a book about it. Though its title makes "Fast Times" sound like any number of variations on "Porky's," it is a savvy comedy that details high-school students' lives from their own subversive points of view. This is the film in which Sean Penn was first noticed, as a perpetually stoned student who called everyone "Dude" before it became yesterday's slang. Sex and drugs and greed are part of these teenagers' lives, though not in a lurid, melodramatic or life-threatening way. They are simply issues to be faced.

While "Fast Times" is about the sloppiness of teen-age confusion — the heroine is talked into sex too soon, with a self-serving oaf — "Say Anything" is the kind of formula high-school movie that John Hughes pioneered a half-dozen years ago. Mr. Crowe's film has some witty dialogue and a dynamic performance by John Cusack, but its predictable story is about an aspiring kick-boxer named Lloyd, who falls in love with the beautiful class valedictorian, Diane. When Lloyd talks about his future, he knows only that he doesn't want to be involved with selling or processing anything; his ambition in life is to be with Diane.

John Cusack and lone Skye in Cameron Crowe's "Say Anythin” – glib and disappointing

"Say Anything" is not about Lloyd being adrift, though. His is the equivalent of the Molly Ringwald role in Mr. Hughes's "Pretty in Pink" or "Sixteen Candles," that of the un­appreciated teenager whom the audience sees as more sensitive and wonderful than the class stars. Just as Ms. Ringwald's character always gets her hunky boyfriend, Lloyd wins Diane. In these updated girl-gets­boy romances, ordinary teenagers see them­selves as heroes and teenage confusion lasts about 90 minutes.

 

But "Heathers," a first film for the writer Daniel Waters and the director Michael Lehmann, has the fearless style of teenagers thumbing their noses at the adult world. In the opening scene, Veronica (Winona Ryder) plays croquet with her three beautiful best friends, all named Heather, all walking, talking, perfectly dressed symbols of popularity and peer group pressure. When Veronica sees her own head replace the croquet ball, it is clear that "Heathers" owes more to the topsy-turvy world of "Alice in Wonderland" than to John Hughes.

Though the beautiful Veronica might as well be a Heather, she feels so stifled that she takes up with the new boy in class, someone who fires his gun in the cafeteria to get attention, wears a Jack Nicholson sneer and murders one of the Heathers to make Veronica happy. Veronica then forges a perfect Heather suicide note about the emptiness of popularity.

Stylistically, "Heathers" has a surreal edge and the kind of irreverence that makes everything — even a serious problem like teen-age suicide — a subject for satire. Suicide becomes something the popular kids do, so when an unhappy, obese student throws herself in front of a truck and survives, one of the Heathers sneers that the misfit can't even kill herself right.

But the film is perfectly aware of the Heathers' shallowness, and it mocks the kind, of conformity that makes suicide a dangerous fad. In "Dead Poets Society," the suicide of one of the boys — meant to be the emotion­al climax of the film — is as abrupt and unexamined as if the character had just bit­ten off a hangnail. "Say Anything" fearfully raises the subject of suicide, then glides by it. One of Lloyd's best friends, we hear, tried to kill herself after her boyfriend left her. She has since written 65 heartbroken songs about him, remains attracted to him and angry at him ; yet the suicide attempt is treated as if it were a bad case of the flu, some germ she has, picked up and left behind.

"Heathers" treats suicide more rudely, directly and deeply. Its black humor resembles that of the film "M*A*S*H," whose theme song, "Suicide Is Painless," conveniently lost its lyrics for the increasingly toothless television version. "Dead Poets Society" and "Say Anything" are like the sitcom version of "M" A*S*H" — better made than most films, maybe, but no match for the startling earlier work Mr. Weir and Mr. Crowe created. And they offer a cautionary tale for the creators of "Heathers."

"Picnic at Hanging Rock" was Mr. Weir's breakthrough film from Australia to international recognition. The immediacy of "Fast Times" owes much to Mr. Crowe's first-hand experiences. Trying to recapture the fleeting transition from child to adult a second time in a mainstream film can be as awkward as middle-aged parents trying to pass for 18.

 

TV's `Wonder Years' gets it right, but can it continue?

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR

ABC'S "WONDER YEARS" IS THE KIND OF small, beautifully crafted weekly series that is so good it prompts immediate speculation on how long it can be held together.

Created by Neal Martens and Carol Black, the show made its debut on Jan. 31, 1988, immediately following a Rose Bowl game that guaranteed an enormous sampling audience. The reviews were generally enthusiastic. After only six episodes, "The Wonder Years" snared last year's Emmy Award for best comedy series. Along with the considerable prestige, which ABC badly needed after notorious clinkers like "Amerika," the ratings have been fairly solid, improving during the season just ended when the show was given an earlier slot, 8:30 on Tuesdays, following "Who's the Boss?" and before "Roseanne." Things could hardly look better for a deserving series.

But this being television, nothing is ever quite that simple. This past March, in the middle of production, the husband-and-wife team of Mr. Marlens and Ms. Black — they previously developed "Growing Pains" — suddenly departed "to pursue other projects," leaving Bob Brush ("The `Slap' Maxwell Story") as the executive producer. In a brief statement, ABC expressed its "fullest confidence" in Mr. Brush.

Yet, the network can justifiably feel nervous about dealing with the creators of top series. Matt Williams left "Roseanne," though with no discernible effect thus far, but Glenn Gordon Caron dropped out of "Moonlighting," which was one of the final nails in that show's coffin.

Further, "The Wonder Years" has some built-in pitfalls. The period is the late 1960's. There's the Vietnam War, protesting students, hippies, psychedelic music, drugs. So far, Kevin Arnold, who started out as a 12-year­old and is already 13, has been able to stay on the sidelines, preoccupied with the standard problems of adolescence — going on dates, kissing, discovering that his parents are real people with problems of their own.

But what happens when he's 19 or 15? Does he remain the ingratiating good kid, or does he start rebelling and possibly experimenting with drugs? For the moment, a bit edgy about the obvious dangers, the producers are proceeding one week at a time.

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`Wonder Years': Will the Wonder Last?
The award-winning  ABC series about  adolescence not only lost its creators but  has some built-in
pitfalls.

To date, as the series goes into summer re­runs, "The Wonder Years" has painstakingly tread a paper-thin line between unpretentious emotion and sentimentality. The show's structure is ingenious. Young Kevin, played with remarkable charm by Fred Savage, is seen growing up in suburbia as filtered though the tart, bemused, fond comments of today's Kevin, now in his mid-30's. Never seen, the older Kevin is "played" vocally by Daniel Stern ("Diner," "Breaking Away"), who has also directed some episodes. Each Kevin cleverly works off the other. Occasionally, the gimmick is stretched too far, as when the young one reacts to something the older one is saying but which he couldn't possibly have known or felt at the time. But the back-and-forth routine works well as a tool to undercut excessive soppiness. With the deft additions of period music, ranging from the Beatles to Nat King Cole, the tone of the show is calibrated with uncommon precision.

This is not your standard sitcom, taped be­fore a studio audience and cluttered with entrance and exit wisecracks. "The Wonder Years" is filmed and clearly not interested in tired contrivances. Simplicity and economy are at the heart of the very best episodes. Small but illuminating perceptions are allowed to creep up on both the characters and the viewers.

Mr. Savage is only slightly more equal than the others in what amounts to still another one of those fine ensemble companies in which television specializes: Dan Lauria as Jack Arnold, the father; Alley Mills as Norma, the mother; Jason Hervey as older brother Wayne, the bully; Olivia d'Abo as older sister Karen, budding flower-child; Danica McKellar as Winnie Cooper, object of young Kevin's ardent love, and Josh Saviano as Paul Pfeiffer, nerd extraordinaire and Kevin's best friend.

Perhaps not surprisingly, "The Wonder Years" is most affecting when least cute. One episode, for instance, began with Mom enrolling in a pottery class and bringing home the most grotesque ashtrays and pitchers imaginable. Amusing enough. But it seemed that Dad did not like the idea of his wife spending even a small portion of her life outside the family precincts. Before Kevin knew what was happening, his mother and father, once taken for granted as an eternal unit, were having a battle that could easily prove traumatic for all concerned.

More recently, in the season's final episode, Kevin became so obsessed with Winnie's attentions, or the lack of them, that he failed to notice that she was profoundly unhappy because her parents were separating. "Suddenly, I began to understand," he said. "I wanted to say something that would give her comfort, something incredibly wise." Turning to Winnie, he muttered, "Sorry."

These are the passing moments that "The Wonder Years" handles with insight and seductive humor. There is Kevin visiting his father's office and finding out why he tends to come up from work grumpy and unapproachable. Or there is Kevin discovering that he will never be as good a pianist as the obnoxious Ronald Hershheimer. For the time being, these are moments enough for any television series.

Mr. Marlens has said the series would probably end when the required period music reached disco. That still leaves a hefty slice of time for a lot more.

 

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