Class

Uneven film at best, but does offer a nostalgic look at some of the pre-famous actors of the 1980's. Not a great plot, but one that will hold your interest due to the likeable characters involved. The ending is rather abrupt and makes one wonder if the director ran out of time, money, or both. Anyway, Ms Bisset is stunning in this role and very appealing. Enjoy!

The naive and clumsy Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) joins the prep school Vernon Academy expecting to go to Harvard. He befriends his wealthy roommate Skip (Rob Lowe) and soon he sends Jonathan to Chicago to lose his virginity. Jonathan meets the thirty and something years old Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset) and they have a love affair. Jonathan lies to her about where he studies and he falls in love with her. When they decide to travel to New York, Ellen accidentally discovers that Jonathan studies at the Vernon Academy and she vanishes. In the Christmas break, Skip invites Jonathan to spend the holiday with his family, and Jonathan has a huge surprise finding who Ellen is.

"Class" is a pleasant movie that begins very funny, with Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, John Cusack and Virginia Madsen very young. Jacqueline Bisset is extremely beautiful and fits perfectly to the role of Ellen. Unfortunately the story is lost between comedy and drama with a disappointing conclusion. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Questão de Classe" ("A Question of Class")

Class is the story of a shy, clumsy, but very intelligent young man played by Andrew MaCarthy who transfers to an exclusive prep school for his senior year of high school. He comes from a working-class background and has more than a little trouble getting comfortable in his new surroundings. It doesn't help matters that he has to share a room with an obnoxious rich kid played by Rob Lowe. Throughout the film we see McCarthy learn lessons about love, academics, and friendship.

This is a very uneven film; often switching from comedy to heavy-handed mature themes almost on a dime. The comedy for the most part hits the mark. The dramatic elements are just not believable.

I have never seen a film go to so much trouble to humiliate its main character. Some of the things that happen to McCarthy are pretty funny, but others almost make you feel sorry for the poor kid. McCarthy is barely on campus for five minutes before Lowe convinces him to put on women's underwear and parade around in the commons area. McCarthy thinks it is some type of senior ritual that is done every year, but he soon finds out that only he is participating in it. Lowe then locks him out of their dorm and he is forced to climb in through a second story window with hundreds of other students taunting him. Now that is the type of thing that can scar for life! There are a few other scenes where McCarthy's humiliation continues. He journeys to a trendy bar in Chicago and is made a fool of twice in front of the whole place. In a show of sympathy, a rich older woman feels sorry for him and takes him to a motel and nails him. In what has to be one of the biggest contrivances in movie history, that woman turns out to be Lowe's unbalanced alcoholic mother! They screw around for a few weekends before she finds out he goes to her son's school and then promptly runs out on him. (That would be a hell of a thing to learn!) The film's biggest laugh comes from the scene directly after that one. In it, McCarthy is sitting in the rain at a bus stop waiting for Lowe to show up and give him a lift back to school. He couldn't be any more depressed until Lowe comes screeching up to the stop; sending a tidal wave of rain water cascading over the dejected McCarthy! McCarthy is depressed for quite a while after being dumped, but he is still unaware that the woman of his dreams was his best friend's mother. In a truly uncomfortable scene at their home during the Xmas holiday, they meet again. The film gets way too serious from that point on.

The only laughs in the last half hour stem from the investigation of stolen SAT tests on the campus by a nerdy bureaucrat from the state attorney general's office. In one hilarious scene, the students think the officer is there to bust them for drugs. We see about a hundred young men scurrying to the bathroom to flush all of their joints, pills, and whatnot. One guy even tries to flush an entire pot plant that's about six feet high! Towards the end, things get really serious. Lowe finally finds out his mother and McCarthy are screwing around. He knows McCarthy illegally bought an SAT test. Will he turn him in? Will the boys get into Harvard? What will become of Lowe's parents? What will become of McCarthy's dog? If you care enough to find out, give this film a chance. If nothing else, it has some very early performances by some people who went on to greater things. It was McCarthy's debut. Alan Ruck, John Cusak, Virginia Madsen (nice boob shot, by the way!), and several other recognizable faces are present.

6 of 10 stars.

So sayeth the Hound.

Okay, I must admit, it is difficult for me to remain entirely rational about this film, because it evokes sentimental memories. But I love this film, I love it, what can I say. For me it has everything, the ivy league ambience, the lovable-I-own-the-place-swagger of Rob Lowe, the appropriate witticisms, at the appropriate times read by a cast to kill for.

The film begins and ends with the "kids" in complete control, theres no PC screwing around either, all of the students do drugs, with most of the action taking place at a prep boarding school there's poker games and smoking after lights out. I tried to re-enact the John Cussack 'tip truck' smoking trick for almost a decade, in fact it was the prime reason I took up smoking in the first place.

The New Renaissance has been indicated by many social historians as the years 1982 to 1987 with the peak beginning with the opening night of the movie ET, and the end coinciding with the closing ceremony of the 1984 LA olympics. This film, having been made in 1983, stands as a virtual document to the affirmations and values of Western Culture at its peak. The scene of the triumphal holiday return of Rob Lowes character to his ancestral home is resplendant with a punk version of 'the little drummer boy', as he tears through New England countryside in his Porshe charger......breathtaking.

Nothing since the death of communism comes close to replicating the self confidence that shimmers off this film with the possible exception of "The Chocolate War". This film is not to be taken as a trite story but should be viewed in the light that reflects what it is, an artistic vision of the height of teen existence at the height of human existence, not too big a call I'm sure you'd agree.

Though this movie was clearly designed to have mass-market teen appeal, it has a serious side that makes it stand out from other movies of the same type. The premise, a teenage boy's first sexual encounter turns out to be with his roommate's mother, is contrived to arouse curiosity among adolescents. Combine this with unsophisticated humor and flaunting of authority and you have the formula for a popular teen romp. But it seems that there is a movie with some sensitivity and drama trapped within this rather restrictive framework. The boy is torn between his friendship with his roommate and his relationship with his friend's mother. The woman is repressed and intimidated by her husband and finds a sense of freedom in this forbidden relationship which she can't seem to let go. The result is a movie that tries to be both a high school date movie of the week and an adult drama, landing somewhat awkwardly somewhere in the middle. It does have some laughs though and some before-they-were-famous appearances that might make it worth while.