A romcom laced with drama, Valley Girl<\/em> is a droll riff on Romeo and Juliet<\/em>. The star-crossed lovers are Julie, the titular Valley Girl, and Randy, a rough-around-the-edges, New Wave-ish rebel from Hollywood Hills. Randy crashes a Valley party, <\/strong>sparks fly, and the two begin a whirlwind romance. Their love is eventually threatened by the teen equivalent of a bloodthirsty medieval clan: Julie\u2019s clique of popular friends, who want her to ditch Randy and get back together with her ex Tommy, a preppy lunk with a wardrobe full of striped polos and a sense of entitlement to match. In the final third of the film, Randy strives to win Julie over with an escalating series of loopy romantic gestures, and all ends well in a satisfying drama-at-the-prom sequence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It all rests on Deborah Foreman\u2019s performance as Julie. Her ditzy surfaces never really conceal a dazzling luminosity and a surprising sobriety. If she doesn\u2019t quite have the fervor of a theatrical tragic heroine, she\u2019s got something more interesting: a profound and genuine curiosity. She starts off already wondering what lies beyond her candy-colored world: between her genial smiles you see her eyes constantly on the move, as if the something good that’s coming for her is hovering just out of sight. Her blazing loveliness is matched by a pensive, inquisitive quality. When she\u2019s falling for Randy, it\u2019s not just about moony-eyed attraction; she has a genuine desire to understand him and his world. As she gradually succumbs to peer pressure, she shades in <\/strong>all the nuances of growing discomfort and distress that comes from trying to make big decisions when you\u2019re not really sure who you are yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Randy, a heartbreakingly young Nicolas Cage seems not fully in control of his intensity, but Coolidge knows what to do with that mercurial charisma. As he reels between brooding, dopey and sheepish, he matches the film\u2019s shifting tones and encompasses the volatility of adolescent moods. After he\u2019s jilted, Randy is the more ardent and sympathetic lover, but Valley Girl<\/em> never entirely sugarcoats the realities of teen relationships, and there are powerful moments when we\u2019re reminded that boys can be scary when they\u2019re angry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not to say that the film takes itself too seriously. Julie and Randy\u2019s budding romance is shown mostly in a bubbly montage, a pop fantasia set to Modern English\u2019s \u201cI Melt With You.\u201d The film parodies without diluting pleasure, and there\u2019s a distinct allure to the candy-colored world of the Valley, with its gleaming surfaces and its exuberant fashion. (A particularly brilliant touch is the ruffled blouse Julie wears to the party where she meets Randy, which suggests the Renaissance while still being twee in an 80s way.) The final prom scene is a feat of production design\u2013a girl\u2019s dream in a symphony of pink and lilacs. While it\u2019s not terribly believable that a bunch of preps would have Josie Cotton performing her cult classic New Wave song \u201cJohnny Are You Queer?\u201d at their high school dance, it\u2019s an undeniable bop and a kind of brilliant ironizing of the hyper-heteronormative world of not just the Valley, but the \u201880s teen comedy itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Valley Girl <\/em>still has legs because it knows what it\u2019s supposed to be, yet always manages to be something more. It hits all the teen flick beats: there\u2019s a big party scene with lots of romantic drama, but it shows the kind of casual coercion with which boys often lead girls into hookups. There\u2019s got to be a sleepover scene with scantily-clad girls, but while in their leopard-print panties, they make casual endorsements of bulimia that will be darkly familiar to veterans of real-life sleepovers. In capturing both the fluffy fun and roiling turmoil of adolescence, Valley Girl <\/em>provides a sugar rush of \u201880s nostalgia while giving us something more to sink our teeth into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Valley Girl” is currently streaming on Showtime and Kanopy<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/valley-girl1-1024x576.jpg\")
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The chemistry that ignites between Foreman and Cage is something more than what springs from the anodyne meet-cutes typical of rom-coms. It\u2019s here where the Shakespearean source is most evident and most successful; what happens is not puppy love, but passion, with all its unruly force and its power to completely upend your sense of self, and even of reality. There is making out here that is hotter than many sanitized sex scenes in movies made for adults.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n