Festival Report: NYFF 2020 Revivals

Image from Smooth Talk, courtesy Janus Films

2 November 2020 ∙ Originally published in Dig Boston

(Presented below is an excerpt written by me from a larger staff piece)

Smooth Talk
Directed by Joyce Chopra. US, 1985, 92 minutes.

At their malls, in their houses or in their cars, girls and women deal with “handy men” (James Taylor plays constantly). The smoothness wears off, and all that’s left is the feeling—unknowable yet inevitable.

Laura Dern is magnificent. At 18, she carried herself with the awkward grace that lands assertive teens in trouble. Adapting the Joyce Carol Oates story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966), Smooth Talk follows Dern’s Connie as she dances past her own limitations, exploring the uneasy tension between our comfort zones and the outside world’s devices. Warm yet melancholy, tender yet profoundly disturbing, it’s one of those movies you might not think to look at twice but are unshakable once you let them in—much like the sexual feelings our young protagonist feels blossoming within her.

What do all these mall trips and makeout rides with cute boys mean? As much as any teenage summer, they’re airy, sunlit, and intensely terrifying. [★★★★1/2] —Juan A. Ramirez

Available to rent at virtual.filmlinc.org beginning November 6, and at coolidge.org (among various others) beginning November 13.