Jet Set Kids

This is another respectable entry into the genre of the unhappy and unloved teenager, going after a boy who turns out to be no prize, and trying to fit in with her fellow classmates, but how does it find its audience when the title misleads you into thinking its a sex-and-drugs movie, and the video cover misleads you into thinking it's has Melanie Griffith it when she only makes two passing appearances? -- one is her coming out of doorway. Hard to come to the film in the right frame of mind after all the deceptions.

I love movies that almost grasp the reality of a teens life. Though I do enjoy the occasional happy ending, as unrealistic as they are. Tart was real, the boy really screws you over and leaves you heartbroken. 'Chick flicks' have probably a more depressing ending than movies like Tart, because you know you will never find that perfect mate, it gives us false hope and sets us up for disappointment. While Tart is cold, hard, reality. Probably a little more harsh than most of our realities. After watching Tart, you don't think wow that was a great movie because it leaves you with an uneasy feeling. Life isn't rainbows and butterflies, and Tart is a great example of that, what we refuse to see, but its there. Love it or hate it. But I choose to love it.

For me this movie is about losing things and being lost. And it makes the observation that when you're lost you can end up losing things that you didn't know you had much less that you wanted to keep.

Cat (Dominique Swain) doesn't know who she is, which ironically doesn't keep her from not liking who she is. And in the people around her -- family and friends, adults and peers -- she finds varying amounts of belonging, rejection, hope, and disillusionment. In other words, Cat is just 17 in a way that should be familiar to us.

That's one of the strengths of Christina Wayne's quiet, mature film is the feeling of verite. I've never been young and rich in NYC (or near-rich, or formerly-rich, or trying-to-keep-up- with-the-rich) but Wayne's portrait seems so detailed it makes me really curious to know if she has been. Far from being "Just another spoiled rich kids film - _Kids_ meets _Metropolitan_!" Wayne shows us Cat trying to "fit in" and a diverse number of reasons -- from financial to social to emotional to behavioral -- why you can cast out of this insular, cannibalistic sub-culture.

Another strength is Wayne's direction and writing. The film is well-constructed with strong characters, with images and (Yeah, I'll say it ...) motifs that appear once and then quietly reappear in different contexts. And all throughout Wayne shows a really nice eye for pictures.

Plus she's got really good people doing good work. I mean, everyone is in this movie: Swain, Renfro, Phillips, Zehetner, Chabert and Barton (before they had to try to be smoking hot), Scott Thompson of _Kids in the Hall_ fame. She even gets Melanie Griffith to do a walk-on.

One thing the film has going against it is the marketing. Looking at the trailer and the film poster, it's clear that Lions Gate or whoever didn't know how to pitch this film. It seems like they wanted it to be naughtier or rowdier or ... brighter than it is. But it's not a melodrama. There are no simple heroes and villains, no moralizing on right and wrong, no suspense- ridden plot. It's the type of character-based, even, sad, dramatic storytelling that seems to go down better in Canada that here in the States.

I like it, though. If you've got a quiet morning and some time, it deserves a try.

"Tart" is a good illustration of old the Yogi Berra saying: "If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up someplace else". Writer/Director Christina Waye (in her first feature) has managed to make a $3 Million movie that ends up someplace else. "Tart" is either a coming of age story devoid of characters that a rational person can connect with, a black comedy without any humor, or a sexploitation movie without anything that is particularly sexy.

Unlike the standard Swain film, "Tart" actually employed a competent and experienced production designer. Good enough to provide two extremely nice shots: the scene of Swain and Barton taking a bubble bath together and the scene of Swain in the park-featuring a nice montage of the "Alice in Wonderland" sculpture. The symbolism incorporated into these elements supports the possibility that Waye (despite the absence of a linear logic or unity of tone) actually has some visionary talent and aspirations for making a quality film.

It is even possible that Waye was trying for a fusion of the somewhat expressionistic "Metropolitan" and the camp classic "Cruel Intentions" which also deal with the Manhattan upper class. There are many camera shots framed by windows and doors yet few tight shots of faces and eyes. The former technique hinting at symbolism and the latter at intentional distancing from the characters and their motivations. "Tart" seemed on the verge of veering into camp territory at least twice and would have been well advised to keep going in that direction. First there was the scene where they try to dump the seemingly deceased Swain into the garbage chute. Then there is the whole bit about her father being Jewish (played to the same extreme as Joel Grey dancing with the Jewish guerrilla in "Cabaret").

In her other films Swain's acting technique is to overwhelm each scene in which she appears (insert scenery chewing here) but in "Tart" she actually shows an ability to restrain herself. This is the best performance of her career. It also provides some clues about her physical deterioration from willowy super cute in "Girl" to hulking lumpy-faced in "Pumpkin". This transformation was about half-complete by the time she made "Tart"; so go the ravages of time.

Mischa Barton ("Sixth Sense's" I feel better girl) and Lacey Chabet are excellent in supporting roles. The rest of the cast is simply horrible, although some of the blame for this should go to Waye's script and direction.

I anticipated something with a little more substance than this, although not much. It seemed to have decent casting, a potentially interesting story, but pretty much left you going "Hunh?!" afterwards, wondering what the point of the whole thing really was. No amount of personal insight or imagination could put any of this into any kind of perspective that makes sense. It's basically just stupid. You wonder why she periodically narrates a letter to someone you're unsure of, and when you DO find out, you're confused as to why and what relevance it finally serves, which is absolutely none. The revelation that her father is jewish, among other things, as just a mention, but with some inference that it is important, is ridiculous. Idiotic waste of film.