Fast Times At Ridgemont High - One For The 80s Time Capsule

Mar

16

Fast Times At Ridgemont High - One For The 80s Time Capsule

≡ Category: Comedy, Drama, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Comedy
Director: Amy Heckerling
Year: 1982

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

If anyone wanted to know what highschool was like back in the 80s, they couldn’t do better than to watch Fast Times At Ridgemont High. There’s a good reason for that. Writer Cameron Crowe pretended to be a student at Clairemont High School in Southern California for a while to observe the social life of the students before he started writing the script.

So, Fast Times At Ridgemont High is that rare youth comedy that operates on more than one level. It’s an anthropological study of teenagers circa 1982 and it’s a comedy (it had to either be that or a tragedy). Fast Times gets so many details right.

When someone remarks that a derelict sold his body to be used for medical science for twenty-five bucks, stoner Sean Spicolli remarks “Righteous bucks.” It’s startling to be reminded that in high school, when kids aren’t used to having ANY money, even chump change seems like a lot.

The kids in Fast Times At Ridgemont High are obsessed about losing their virginity and having sex in general. One kid, who likes to give the impression that he’s a man of the world, comes in about five seconds when he’s on top of a woman. Back in 1982, people did lose their virginity mighty early, but they sure didn’t get laid regularly. That, and the amount of hormones surging through a young male body, virtually guarantees a race to the finish line, if you know what I mean. And yes, people really were that casual about sex in those days, before the AIDS epidemic was in full swing.

I could go on about how well writer Cameron Crowe nails the specifics of youth culture of the time with unerring accuracy, but suffice it to say that Fast Times At Ridgemont High is probably the most accurate portrayal of the high school experience ever.

But is Fast Times At Ridgemont High funny? Hell yeah, and largely for the same reasons. Most of the laughs come from the disparity of how the kids see life and how it really is. Mind you, the movie does not look down on these kids — it regards them affectionately.

I lost count of how many indelible moments there are in this film, but I’ve got to mention one: stoner Jeff Spicolli (Sean Penn) orders a pizza in History class, and teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston, in a career-capping performance) deals with it in a wonderfully creative way. In fact, the whole relationship between Mr. Hand and Jeff Spicolli is priceless. Mr. Hand is the kind of teacher every kid deserves and so few get.

In fact, Fast Times At Ridgemont High is unusual in that the teachers in the school, so far as they are depicted, are actually sympathetic characters instead of the enemy. The biology teacher, Mr. Vargas (Vincent Schiavelli), is a bit of a weirdo, but a kindly gentleman with a sincere interest in teaching his students.

I’d better say something about the cast — it’s fantastic across the board. This was Jennifer Jason Leigh’s first role and she’s perfect as Stacy, the girl desperate to have a boyfriend. Stacy’s brother, Brad (Judge Reinhold), starts the movie as the assistant manager of a popular burger joint and steadily gets worse jobs until he’s an overnight cashier in a convenience store (there’s a joke in there somewhere). Reinhold captures adolescent humiliation brilliantly. And Sean Penn — he’s awesome, dude! Seriously, the way Penn gets inside the skin of stoner surfer Jeff Spicolli is uncanny. I knew guys like this back in high school around the time the movie takes place. Penn gives a great comic performance. Forget that. It’s a great performance, period.

Something else about Fast Times At Ridgemont High — it moves like lightning, even 25 years after it was filmed. Part of that is Cameron Crowe’s script, and part of that is director Amy Heckerling, who does an amazing job of juggling several storylines and half a dozen major characters. The crazy part is she managed to create one of the best youth comedies of all time in only five weeks of shooting. The film flows effortlessly from beginning to end. The tone varies considerably — there are some dark moments, including a trip to an abortion clinic for one of the film’s characters — but never once is it jarring.

There’s only one way to say it: to borrow the words of Jeff Spicolli, Fast Times At Ridgemont High is “…awesome, totally awesome.”