Smooth Talk

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For the album by Evelyn King, see Smooth Talk (album).
Smooth Talk
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJoyce Chopra
Screenplay byTom Cole
Based on"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
by Joyce Carol Oates
Produced byMartin Rosen
Starring
CinematographyJames Glennon
Edited byPatrick Dodd
Music byRuss Kunkel
Bill Payne
Production
companies
Distributed byInternational Spectrafilm
Release date
  • November 15, 1985 (1985-11-15)[1]
Running time
96 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.08 million[2]
Box office$16,785[3]

Smooth Talk is a 1985 film directed by Joyce Chopra, loosely based on Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1966),[4] which was in turn inspired by the Tucson murders committed by Charles Schmid. The protagonist and main character, Connie Wyatt, is played by Laura Dern. The antagonist, Arnold Friend, is played by Treat Williams.

The film was produced by American Playhouse and Goldcrest Films, and originally released to movie theaters in 1985. The original music score was composed by Russ Kunkel and Bill Payne. The film won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at the 1986 Sundance Festival.[5]

Plot[edit]

Connie Wyatt is a restless 15-year-old who is anxious to explore the pleasures of her sexual awakening. Before she enters her sophomore year in high school, she spends the summer moping around her family farmhouse. She suffers from the put-downs of her mother, Katherine, while hearing nothing but praise for her older sister, June. Her father, Harry, somehow manages to float around the family tensions. Connie also helps paint the cottage, just as her mother constantly demands her to.

Connie passes the time cruising the local shopping mall with her friends and flirting with boys. However, when an actual date leads to heavy petting, she escapes from the boy's car. She frequents a hamburger joint popular with locals, where unbeknownst to her, an older man observes her with interest. One night as she leaves, the man playfully tells Connie, "I'm watching you!" Connie and her mother get into an argument about her going out at night and being careful with whom she flirts, which results in Katherine slapping Connie when she brings up how Katherine became a young mother. Connie declines to attend a barbecue with her family that afternoon and is left alone in the house.

Later, the same man who was watching Connie approaches the house in a 1960s convertible. The side of his car is painted with the name "Arnold Friend" which he claims is his real name. Besides dressing and behaving like James Dean, he also name-drops several teenybopper acts, even though he appears to be in his thirties. Although he initially comes off as kind and friendly, he gradually adopts a sinister demeanor, alternating between speaking to Connie in a warm, seductive voice and shouting insults to his fellow car passenger when he inquires about a phone. Arnold informs Connie about how he has been watching her and that he knows all about her, recounting the details about her family's barbecue plans with startling accuracy. He then begins speaking about how he could be her lover. Connie orders him to leave, but he coerces her into going on a drive with him by threatening to burn down the house. His friend stays behind as they head off in his car.

When Connie returns home, she is bewildered and disheveled and informs Arnold that she never wants to see him again. It is left ambiguous whether or not he raped her; it is implied that she isn't the same person she was at the film's beginning. When Connie's family returns from the barbecue, her mother tearfully apologizes to her for slapping her earlier that day, but Connie reassures her that everything is all right. At the film's ending, she doesn't inform June about what happened, but dances with her to James Taylor's recording of the song "Handy Man".

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

The short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates was adapted by playwright Tom Cole, Joyce Chopra's husband. Among the contributions Cole and Chopra added to the story was a fleshing out of the family relationships between Connie, her parents, and her sister.[6] Laura Dern was not cast until two weeks before filming.[6] Filming of Smooth Talk took place in northern California in the cities of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa.[1]

Release and reception[edit]

Goldcrest Films invested £516,000 in the film and received £635,000 earning them a profit of £119,000.[7] It screened at the 1986 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize.[8] The film was given a limited release in American theaters and continued to be unreleased on VHS and DVD for years thereafter due to going through different distributors.[9][10]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Smooth Talk holds a rating of 94% from 31 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Elevated by Laura Dern's haunting performance, Smooth Talk is far more than your average coming-of-age drama."[11] Roger Ebert, who awarded the film 3.5 stars out of 4, described it as "almost uncanny in its self-assurance".[12]

Re-release[edit]

The film was given a 4K restoration by The Criterion Collection in September 2020 and was screened at the New York Film Festival that month to critical acclaim.[10][13] Janus Films gave the film a general re-release that November.[10] Writing of the restored film, Richard Brody of The New Yorker said, "Chopra strikes an astoundingly tactile, intimate vision of Connie’s terror together with the burdens of self-doubt and silence that she endures—and that predators foster. The film’s power is enormous throughout; spare means (long-held closeups, a four-minute take of sisterly confessions) evoke a drama that seems to have been filmed holding its breath."[14]

Marshall Shaffer of Slant Magazine wrote "the film adequately recognizes the thin line between male seduction and coercion."[9] Jake Cole, also of Slant, awarded the film 3.5 stars, saying "Dern nails the devastation of a woman learning how evil and exploitative the world of men can be, and just as David Lynch’s film [Blue Velvet] ended on a note of society’s mask of civilized jollity reasserting itself in the face of deeper awareness, so, too, does Smooth Talk conclude with Connie, faced with no recourse to change anything, find a way to compartmentalize her rude awakening for the sake of survival."[15]

Home media[edit]

The film was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on December 7, 2004.[16] The film was released on Blu-ray for the first time by Olive Films on November 24, 2015.[17] The Criterion Collection released a special edition Blu-ray & DVD of the film on February 23, 2021.[4] The edition is a two-disc set which includes Chopra’s short films, retrospective interviews with the director and cast, and behind-the-scenes featurettes.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Smooth Talk". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on February 19, 2019.
  2. ^ https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58371-SMOOTH-TALK
  3. ^ "Smooth Talk". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  4. ^ a b "Smooth Talk (The Criterion Collection)". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  5. ^ 1986 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
  6. ^ a b Laffly, Tomris (February 23, 2021). "Director Joyce Chopra On The 'Smooth Talk' Restoration, Casting Laura Dern & The Film's Timely Story [Interview]". theplaylist.net. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  7. ^ Eberts, Jake; Illott, Terry (1990). My indecision is final. Faber and Faber. p. 657.
  8. ^ "1986 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL - AWARDS" (PDF). Sundance.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2011. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  9. ^ a b Shaffer, Marshall (November 9, 2020). "Interview: Joyce Chopra on Creating a Believable Teen Movie with Smooth Talk". Slant Magazine. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  10. ^ a b c Cohen, Anne (November 5, 2020). "Laura Dern's Forgotten Teen Movie Smooth Talk Is A Haunting Story Of Sex & Girlhood". Refinery29. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  11. ^ "Smooth Talk", Rotten Tomatoes, retrieved February 13, 2024
  12. ^ Ebert, Roger (May 9, 1986). "Smooth Talk movie review & film summary (1986)". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  13. ^ Shaidle, Kathy (November 21, 2020). "Now, Voyager". Shaidle at the Cinema. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  14. ^ Brody, Richard (September 17, 2020). "Highlights from Week One of the New York Film Festival". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
  15. ^ Cole, Jake (November 1, 2020). "Review: Smooth Talk Is an Uncannily Assured Look at Teenage Anxieties". Slant Magazine. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  16. ^ "Smooth Talk DVD". Amazon. December 7, 2004. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  17. ^ "Smooth Talk (Blu-ray)". DVD Talk. Archived from the original on February 19, 2019.

External links[edit]

Awards
Preceded by Sundance Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic
1986 		Succeeded by
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