Tuesday, January 30, 2018

HIGH SCHOOL LOVER: AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL ON STEROIDS



Remember those After School Specials that parents always thought you should watch? They always took topical concepts of the time and provided stories of warning on the dangers of this, that or the other. They always had actors who were either not up to the challenge of acting yet or too old to play the characters they were portraying. And they were far too preachy to be taken seriously.

HIGH SCHOOL LOVER feels like one of those movies. The story revolves around Kelly Winters (Paulina Singer), a high school student who like most stereotypical high school students wants to act like an adult and party with the socially upper class that she desires to gain access to. She lives with her father Rick (James Franco), a movie director of photography, her little sister and her dad’s new wife Samantha (Julia Jones) who Kelly resents and constantly battles with.

Kelly’s best friends are Allison (Lana Condor) and Larry (Tyler Alvarez). Allison is the most status seeking individual you can imagine and Larry is the now stereotypical gay friend. The three of them gain access to a major party in New York City filled with “the beautiful people”, celebrities on the B-list but big enough to grace the pages or gossip mags at grocery stands. There they meet actor Christian Booth (Francois Arnaud) who is immediately attracted to Kelly. While he makes an attempt to woo her, Kelly and Larry hook up with illusionist Tim West (Julian Martinez) who proceeds to make out with Larry to the chagrin of Allison. No matter, he’ll later hook up with her as well or both in a threesome given the opportunity.

The night ends with Kelly entranced by Christian and him taking her home. Unfortunately Kelly is caught sneaking in when she should have been at her friends and is grounded. The next night she has tickets to a concert but Rick will only let her go if he accompanies her. Not a good thing since Christian wants to meet there. They go and Kelly ducks out on her dad for a while, meeting with Christian and her friends but returning before she gets in trouble. While there Christian walks up and introduces himself to Rick and leaves them, still wanting to see Kelly.

The story moves on from there with Christian developing an inflated infatuation with Kelly and stalking her at home, at school and anywhere she goes. At first enjoying the attention that dissipates when Kelly sees a cover story on a magazine of Christian and his girlfriend. Hurt, she pushes him away which only makes her more desirable to Christian. Told by Rick to steer clear Christian threatens Rick with his job since he’s more of a star than Rick is a noted DOP. That doesn’t prevent Rick from telling him to stay away.

I won’t say but of course if you’ve ever witnessed a single movie on the Lifetime network you know where this movie it going to go. It leaves zero surprises for the viewer. And that combination of After School Special and salacious Lifetime flick doesn’t make it a movie worth spending the time to watch. Rather it takes those outlines and beefs them up with new things to make them push the boundaries of what they’ve contained in the past.

Watching the film all I could think to myself as it progressed was why in the world would James Franco make this movie? Then looking at his list of roles on imdb I began to notice that his star is on the decline with some of the choices he’s made. Aside from a few popular comedies he’s made with Seth Rogen his last big hit was in 2013. Since then he’s made a number of films but nothing substantial at the box office. Only this past year did he receive critical praise again for the film THE DISASTER ARTIST which he stars in and directs. But bills have to be paid so I guess this movie was done for the money.

What makes the movie kind of creepy is the fact that since it was made Franco has joined the ranks of stars and producers who’ve been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior, which is what most of this movie is about. No one can say he’s actually guilty of the accusations but when placed next to this film it makes you have that “I need a shower” feeling.

The end result is a movie that the majority of viewers won’t find a need to throw away their time on. If you choose to do so you’ll most likely wish you’d use your time better. But for all Lifetime fans out there knock yourself out.  


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