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.
Click here to order.
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