Still in the realm of '70s films, this post moves the blog from the '70s paranoia thriller to a teen movie that could have only come out of '70s cinema, 1980s Little Darlings. Apart from the silly sport activity montages and food fights, this movie has a lot more depth and nuance than at first glance. I discovered it as a Saturday afternoon matinee on TV as a young teen (much the same age as the characters in the movie) and was hooked. I even own a bootleg Asian DVD since the film has never been released or shown past the VHS era.
The leads are Kristy McNichol as working-class tough girl Angel Bright (yes, that's the character's name) and Oscar-winner Tatum O'Neal as sheltered rich girl Ferris Whitney (that name too). Both are sent away to an all-girls summer camp in an era that was the opposite of helicopter parenting. When they meet their cabin-mates, mouthy mean girl Cinder (short for Cinderella?) whips up a challenge for our two leads: the first of these two to lose their virginity wins a cash prize. Let the betting commence.
Alliances between the cabin-mates form around Angel and Ferris, and both girls choose their targets. For Ferris, it's swarthy, sexy Mr. Callahan (Armand Assante) a thirty-something camp counselor. For Angel, she navigates towards the rival boys' camp's wanna-be tough guy Randy (Matt Dillon in his first major film role). The subtext of Angel/Kristy gravitating to a mirror image of an androgynous beauty like the teenage Dillon with his matching long feathered-hair and full lips is fascinating, when looking retroactively at this movie knowing that McNichol came out of the closet well after her acting career was over. It adds an interesting gay subtext throughout. The Cinder character even tells Angel: "I think you're into girls." And maybe that emboldens Angel to try even harder to bed a man. "I think guys are a pain in the ass," she states on the trip to camp.
It's hard to imagine this movie getting produced today. Although there are raunchier topics in today's teen movies, maybe with less naivete than shown in Little Darlings, this kind of unsupervised, learning through trial and error (not with a Google search) and this emphasis on a natural, "normal" looking, young female cast that is not obsessing about Kardashians and cellphones, but still being teenagers, is rare. Cynthia Nixon, nearly two decades before Sex and the City plays Sunshine, a hippie girl camper who offers her cabin mates "Vitamin E and Niacin; it'll help you from freaking out." It's these sweet notes that make this film rise above basic, boring teen fluff.
"Did anybody see Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast?" one girl asks on the bus ride to camp. "Do you know what my favorite movie is? Last Tango in Paris. I saw it ten times," offers up another. A bit unrealistic dialogue from an adult screenwriter but refreshing in its off-the-cuff attempts at appearing "grown up," a running theme in the movie. Girls smoking cigarettes and saying they're engaged but their parents sent them to camp to "cool it off. They're so provincial." It's like a teen movie directed by Francois Truffaut.
The true heart and soul of the movie is Kristy's portrayal of Angel as a vulnerable loner who tries to impress. Her scene with Dillon in an empty boathouse as they attempt (and fail) to have sex for the first time shows a great talent at brash attitude covering up hurt. [Pardon the crappy YouTube rip]
In the second, and successful attempt to lose it to Dillon, the poignancy of the action actually changes the tone of the film from fun frolic to a more melancholy daze. It's a shame McNichol left acting by the time she hit 30. She pulls no punches in the final line of this second scene with Dillon in the boathouse. After a post-sex hug from Dillon, she pauses and utters to herself "God, I feel so lonesome."
Meanwhile, Ferris is attempting to seduce a much older counselor to no luck. I wonder in a 2017 remake they would allow a 15-year-old female character to lust after a thirty-something man, even if it was Armand Assante. It's odd this movie was originally rated R since most of the cast is all under 17 and it's oriented for a high-school audience. There's no nudity or violence, and the language would barely raise a PG eyebrow today.
Speaking of a remake, I picture Sofia Coppola or Mike Mills doing a bang-up job with the soft-focus, summer-faded glory and teens wise beyond their years (or at least trying to appear that way) that both directors excel in. Elle Fanning as Ferris maybe, and who would be a good Angel? Any ideas?
In a world of smart phones and the internet, could a "camp movie" exist like this that's not "camp" and have something deep to say to teenage girls? Do "teen movies" still do that?
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