When it's over
These days, mainstream teen movies come in three
varieties. There are the slasher flicks, worlds unto
themselves. There are the comedies, that can't seem to
help but fall back on, and all over, sex and fart
jokes. And there are the earnest coming-of-age
stories, about first love, dealing with loss,
achieving a goal. Really, with all the teen movies
that come bubbling up out of the Hollywood cauldron
every year, it must be taxing to come up with
gross-out and/or earnest material that hasn't been
done a million times before.
What to do? What to do? Teen movies are still the
cheapest way to get into mainstream moviemaking, if
for no other reasons than your stars can be no-names
and your scripts can be minimal. But what happens if
you twist up these conventions, just a little? Voila:
Orange County, directed by Jake Kasdan (son of
Lawrence) and written by Mike White (Chuck and
Buck). It twists, just a little. Part
lessons-learned melodrama and part laff-riot, the
movie works very hard to keep all its balls in the
air. And though I can't say that I'd recommend paying
money to see the fabulous Catherine O'Hara get her leg
humped by a dog, Orange County does include a
few -- very few -- less tiresome moments.
O'Hara plays the mother of two boys: aspiring writer
and high school whiz kid Shaun (Colin Hanks, son of
Tom, and almost scarily like him) and Lance (Jack
Black, whom you doubtless have seen in OC's
incessant television campaign -- it's co-produced by
MTV Films -- putting red licorice ropes up his nose
and playing with his fruity cereal). The two brothers
couldn't be more different -- Shaun is ambitious,
smart, and sweet, and Lance is lazy, sloppy, and,
well, he's sweet, too. He only looks repulsive. Just
finishing high school and tired of running the
household for his alcoholic mom, Shaun is desperate to
get into Stanford, because the author of his favorite
novel in the whole wide world teaches there. Shaun is
naïve enough to think that if he writes this guy a fan
letter, with one of his own short stories enclosed,
that he'll be a cinch to get in. This fantasy is
enabled by the fact that he has a phenomenal
transcript, and assurances from his perpetually
distracted guidance counselor (Lily Tomlin).
The plot kicks in when Shaun is rejected (because of
a transcript mix-up), and his friends and Lance offer
to help him. His eminently sensible girlfriend Ashley
(Schuyler Fisk, daughter of Sissy Spacek and art
director Jack Fisk) starts the ball rolling by
bringing her wealthy grandfather (Garry Marshall), a
Stanford alumnus, to meet Shaun. That falls apart
because Shaun's family acts out in monstrous ways (the
short list of hilarities includes mom's drunkenness,
Lance's drug-test urine left on the coffee table, and
mom's wheelchair-bound second husband's general
incapacity). And so, Lance offers to drive him to
Stanford, a few hours away, to talk to the Dean
(Harold Ramis). It's never clear where the urgency
comes from, or why a phone call concerning the
transcript mix-up won't fix everything, but never
mind.
The brothers and Ashley take a little road trip to
Stanford, meet some people, destroy some property, and
learn some things about themselves -- the same stuff
that happens in most any mainstream teen movie, times
two... or is it divided by two? Shaun carries the
sincere kid on a mission plot, so whiny and anxious to
get his way. And Lance carries the irrational yucky
humor plot, with lots of bumbling, falling down, and
ass-crack-showing. He also hooks up with a secretary
at Stanford (Jane Adams), who apparently finds him
irresistible. There's a revelation when Shaun meets
that famous writer (Kevin Kline) and a reconciliation
when Shaun arrives home to find his mom in bed with
her ex-husband, his dad (John Lithgow). And that's
about it.
More than anything else, Orange County is
mundane. This despite or because of the fact that
Lance works hard -- as a character and as a prop -- to
make broad physical jokes. And while Jack Black has
made himself something of a fixture at MTV (they love
his rollicking rock duo, Tenacious D), his role here
reprises most of what you've already seen him do. And
while no one in Orange County gives an
especially inventive performance, you might expect
that the designated funnyman would be, well, funny.
Clearly, the point of retreading the
licorice-in-the-nose joke or the
misplacing-the-urine-test joke is to retread, to do
something that is at once familiar but also goofy or
disgusting. But it's still tired. This is the most
depressing part of Orange County. Following on
the critical and box-office thwacking that Not
Another Teen Movie took last month, and coming
just before Slackers, it's not exactly a
hopeful sign that mainstream teen comedies are headed
anywhere new.
