Continue with Google
>
Smooth Talk Reviews
Date rap at its finest. Yuck!
An underrated gem. Great performances from Laura Dern and Treat Williams.
I saw this movie when it came out in 1985 and just recently saw it again. What a difference 35 years make. When I first saw it, I thought Treat Williams was fantastic, destined to be a star. This time around, I thought his acting was overwrought, a little too mannered. This time around, it is Laura Dern who is fantastic as a teen chafing against her family on the one hand, and a nervous, giggly, anxious, girls-just-want-to-have-fun teenager on the other. She's sexually curious but hesitant. That is, until she is relentlessly pursued by the enigmatic Wiliams, simultaneously threatening and seductive. She engages him skeptically from behind a screen door until she reluctantly agrees to go for a ride in his muscle car. We next see the car parked in the country without the couple and we left to wonder when she returns gratefully engaging her family.
Smooth Talk achieves an incredible trick: what first starts as a happy, breezy '80s coming-of-age film becomes a frightening and disturbing reflection on the dangers of growing up fast and the consequences of the predatory male gaze. Laura Dern gives an impressive, powerful performance, especially for a young actor. The film's strengths lie partially in its ability to ground relationships, consequences, and dialogue in a realistic manner that feels tangible.
Based on the writings Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been A very young Laura Dern is Connie, a rebellious partying teenager with a stubborn mother to boot She wants to spend her sophomore year getting all the guys' attention and shopping with her friends Connie's also feeling neglected given her own mother favors her sister more Things start to get interesting when at a bbq an older man played by Treat Williams starts noticing her more and more Dern is very charismatic in the lead but Williams isnt in the movie enough to make a lasting impact. Overall I didn't like it. Not much going on to keep me invested. The nature of it is pretty dark and disturbing to say the least.
An impressive early performance from Laura Dern in this disturbing '80s coming of age drama.
An interesting commentary on loss of virginity and peer pressure. I would have loved the tone to be more consistent throughout - a very difficult and delicate subject to capture, turning it into a thriller cheapened it in a way.
ok drama that's kinda murky plot line
If this PBS version of Joyce Carol Oates' fabulous short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" does nothing else, it shows us that no drama will live up to the master story-telling of the classic in print. Like all great authors, she uses the gears of our imaginations to take us someplace we've never been before. While the tragic story unfolds in a suspenseful and methodical fashion, this melodrama comes off more as a cautionary tale. The differences are necessary to make the film stand apart from the story, and it's easy to appreciate that most of the audience will need to be diverted in other ways, but most of the detours are unworthy. Having stated this fact, the last half hour is cohesive enough to praise, especially for the blossoming talent of Laura Dern and the perhaps understated, but earnest creepiness of Treat William's performance. Mary Kay Place, as Connie's mother, demonstrates admirable acting, but still seems misplaced--as is Elizabeth Berridge who plays June. The synthesizer soundtrack makes all but the last scenes a period piece--even when it adds some tension towards the finale'. It's good, but it could easily have been more ominous.
Kind of a cautionary tale to young ladies growing up too fast. I thought by the cover, and how the film opened, it was going to be some teeny bopper film. And it started that way with three girls in the mall gawking at boys, and then it slowly turns dark. The last half hour is just creepy. Despite top billing, Treat Williams really doesn't show up until then and it's like a 30 minute seduction scene as this guy clearly in his 30's lures Dern, playing 15, out of the house for a drive which probably led to bad things. But watch Williams bait this young girl will make your skin crawl, he is THAT good in a bad way. Dern is fantastic too, but she looks way too old to be 15. She's really tall and full figured here, and she looks years older than her onscreen sister, who is older allegedly. I still could see the point was across, but the film would have been even creepier had they used someone that looked the actual age. William Ragsdale shows up for a small part too.
Somewhat brutally honest at times, Smooth Talk is about a sixteen year old girl who is falling in love with older boys, while falling out of love with her family. The film depicts a strained mother-daughter relationship; I have two sister, and this film gets it spot on. There is a a dark side to these boys that you are made aware of in the first scene, subtle at times but when you realize it, you can't help getting creeped-out.
Laura Dern is interesting in this coming of age tale, despite being WAAY to old to be the 15 yr old that she's meant to be playing. She spends her days ignoring her mother and household chores, instead spending her time at the mall trying to get noticed by boys, only to eventually draw the attention of a much older man, played by Treat Williams, who watches her from afar, sizing her up as she deals with the boys her age, then finally makes his move. The ambiguous ending may put off some, but I enjoy it and think it might stand up to repeated viewings to see if other details color your own opinion of what actually happens. Give it a rental, see what you think.
Laura Dern did a great job as the protagonist, but the end was bad and insulting.
Between a 6/10 and 7/10,if you can disregard the incoherent ending, in her directorial debut, Chopra has made a disturbing tale of sexual awakening set against the 1980s new context of shopping malls; Laura Dern is extraordinary as the lead.
I loved the Joyce Carol Oates short story this is based on, but every attempt to expand on it here fell flat. The newly added scenes and dialogue never reach the same level of authenticity as that original story, and at its worst moments, the interactions between the protagonist and her family are just plain cheesy. It felt like I was watching a Hallmark movie gone horribly wrong. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" gets its message across without being so preachy. The climactic scene (taken almost word-for-word from the original story) is very well-done, with great acting from Treat Williams who manages to seem creepy and charismatic at the same time. Clearly, this should have been a short film...just without the tacked-on "happy ending" that is so contrived it ruins the previous scene I was just praising.
Taken from Joyce Carol Oates' hard-hitting short story 'Where Ar You Going, Where Have You Been?', Smooth Talk is the movie that put young Laura Dern on the map. She is wonderful in this film, matching Treat Williams step for step as he plays the mysterious Arnold Friend. This is one not to be missed.