There's something extraordinary about "Lucas"; something that makes it impossible for us to reject it. We have always watched movies like "Lucas" along the ages, I have watched plenty of movies like it; and have disliked them all. Not that "Lucas" is great, but you know what I say about 'Love Actually"? If you express it with this film, "Lucas" is good as a movie, but almost brilliant as a family inspirational picture.
What happens in the film is like a tale
An old tale of a boy who is not accepted in his everyday environment and tries to live with it. The hero of this tale is the special Lucas, played by Corey Haim as a boy who is definitely stranger and more intelligent than the rest of his companions; it's something you notice immediately.
Or at least Maggie (Kerri Green) notices it. She spends the entire summer with him and when school starts he doesn't know what's going to happen. Logically, he has his two or three nerdy best friends that are there for him, included a girl named Rina (the first role Winona Ryder ever played, with 15 years old or so
Gorgeous), who obviously likes him and follows his look while he is searching for Maggie on the first day of classes.
It's not that Lucas dislikes his friends, but that he had sensed something different when knowing Maggie. But Maggie is older, and interested in older guys like Cappie (a very young Charlie Sheen), for example. In a very good scene where Cappie takes care of Lucas, Maggie thanks him and they both talk about Lucas
My brother thought Maggie was in love with Lucas, but I told him that she had a crush on Cappie
The movie understands the characters so well that it turned out the way I said, of course.
The language these kids deal with, the situations they live are real. David Seltzer, who directed and wrote the film, puts strong and hurtful words in his screenplay so they generate an impact in the picture's most moving moments. "But that doesn't turn you on, does it?", Lucas tells Maggie
That's not the kind of phrase you'd commonly listen a 13-year old say, even less on a film. That's the way Seltzer shapes his characters, in a way that we believe everything they declare and in a way that the only thing that becomes predictable in the movie is the storyline itself.
A known writer, Seltzer has directed few things. As a director, he also preserves his characters. Watch a beautiful scene where the choir is singing and the camera goes from side to side showing each of the main characters looking at the person he likes, but not one of them being corresponded with the look. That's perfect directing, even more in a film of this type
So classic: the simple edition (Priscilla Nedd-Friendly, "Down to Earth"), the touchy score (Dave Grusin, "The Goonies", "Hope Floats", "Selena").
What I'm trying to say is that, to Seltzer, is all about the movie. The actors don't show off, Corey Haim is the hero but not the star. It's about the movie; a piece with an absolutely clichéd resolution that we find inspiring and therefore embrace.
