Ah, the 1980s high school film, where slapstick and sexual hi-jinks rule the day! Nerds get dates with cheerleaders and the mousy girl learns to let her hair down, sometimes literally! The sort of movie Gen X people my age still speak of in terms of reverence and awe, when John Hughes was Da Man, and even an entitled punk like Ferris Bueller could be the sort of kid everyone on some level wanted to be!
River’s Edge is nothing like that.
The movie opens in Northern California as a preteen boy named Tim (Joshua John Miller) contemplates a doll before tossing it into the river below him, satisfied as he watches the current wash the doll away. We later learn the doll is a favorite of his kid sister’s and he has no qualms about telling her–in front of his mother and older brother Matt (Keanu Reeves)–what he did as a way of tormenting the young girl. That should more or less tell you all you need to know about the tone of River’s Edge. And it isn’t long after that when we see Matt getting fairly physical with Tim for his actions.
That is more or less the subplot. After tossing the doll, Tim notices a friend of his brother’s, John (Daniel Roebuck) sitting on the river bank next to his girlfriend Jamie’s (Danyi Deats) naked corpse. John makes no bones about what happened. He killed Jamie. He doesn’t say much on why or how or even try to deny it. He readily admits in a rather off-hand way that he strangled her and would just assume going about his rather disaffected life. Upon telling his friends, there’re a range of reactions going from hyperactive pothead Layne (Crispin Glover at his most Crispin Glover-y) deciding he needs to help John hide or bury the body and escape town while the others seem rather apathetic. Matt does eventually call the cops, but only after Layne did a half-assed job of trying to push the corpse into the river. But even as cops grill him on his feelings or relationship with the dead girl, he doesn’t really have an answer.
That, more than anything, is what River’s Edge is about. The kids here look like they come from lower class homes, with a handful like Matt’s love interest Clarissa (Ione Skye), coming from anything that looks financially comfortable. Matt and Tim’s home life in particular is fairly tense as none of the kids seem to like their mom’s live-in boyfriend, an implied freeloader who may have a drinking problem. Cruelty seems to be the point, and the reactions to John’s murder of Jamie range from loyalty to John (Layne and Tim) to apathy (most of the rest) to some vague sense of obligation to the law and morality (Matt). The most emotional reaction to the group’s circle doesn’t come from one of their peers but rather Layne’s drug dealer Feck (Dennis Hopper at his most Dennis Hopper-y), asked to hide John while Layne tried to arrange for a way for him to slip out of town, and the more Feck sees of John, the less he likes in terms of the boy’s emotional core.
The last act of this movie worked for me a lot better than the first two as the kids and Feck all came to terms with John’s actions. John finally explains why he did what he did in a moment, describing the power he felt (and the flashbacks there are the only moments in the movie where Deats doesn’t just lie motionless–seriously, she spends most of her screentime lying still in the nude) just as Clarrissa and Matt consummate their own relationship alongside the same river. It’s creepy and effective and shows just how little these kids know about each other or are even curious enough to ask.
The movie ends with the kids coming to terms with their lives and situation. No doubt intended as a cautionary tale about teenage disaffection, based as it is on a real case, the end result is a movie that shows what happens when apathy goes too far.
Grade: B+
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