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The Cinematic Distillation of the Line: “F**k Me Gently with a Chainsaw”
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane / Dustin Rowles
Film Reviews | February 12, 2009 | Comments (21)
Fucking Aces, people. Last year, after witnessing the magical, heartbreaking, dope-themed, coming-of-age ’90s love story The Wackness, I was convinced that director Jonathan Levine was set to become the next Cameron Crowe. With The Wackness, Levine took the romantic comedy blueprint, filled it full of rich material, excellent actressin’, unbelievable music, and refused to go out with a studio-book ending. The result was the greatest love story of 2008. It’s just a goddamn shame no one ever saw it. (If you own Netflix, there’s no excuse).
But All the Boys Love Mandy Lane represents something of an even bigger shame: Not only has no one seen it (except film festival goers and residents of the UK), it still hasn’t even gotten a goddamn chance. Mandy Lane was Levine’s debut film, and it’s been sitting on a shelf since 2006, and unlike most films that collect dust on studio shelves, this one actually deserves to be seen. From what I understand, we can blame Quentin Tarantino, indirectly, for it — the Weinsteins, after the box-office failure of Grindhouse, decided not to release Mandy Lane. They sold the distribution rights, and the new distributor hasn’t bothered to do anything with it yet. Fortunately, if you want to see All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, it’s not that hard to track down. And you’d be wise to try.
Indeed, Levine has done for another genre convention what he did with The Wackness. He’s taken the slasher film blueprint and, without necessarily doing anything particularly original with it, has created a dead teenager movie that you can appreciate not for its campy gloriousness, its machete gore, its body count, or the T & A. In fact, he’s done something I’d never even considered before: He’s crossed Friday the 13th with … Heathers. Actually, the film’s scribe, Jacob Forman, should get credit for the ’80s mash-up, but it’s Levine that sells it. And, my dearest cockswallows, does he ever sell it. Mandy Lane is the tits.
The film opens, more or less, at a high-school pool party, featuring a cadre of beer-swilling, twatwafflian douchesters of the popped-collar variety. One particularly odious jock has his eye on the sumptuous Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) and tries to break the face of Emmet (Michael Welch), Mandy’s Ducky (so to speak), after Emmet steps in on his date-rapey advances. A few minutes later, the drunken jocktard follows Emmet to the roof of the house, and Emmet convinces him that the way to Mandy’s heart is by taking a header off the roof and into the pool. The result: One of the most unpleasant sounds I’ve ever heard in my life followed by a gallon of blood and one dead doucherag.
Nine months later, Mandy Lane has taken her rightful position among the high school’s Mean Girls and their fucktard, peabrained boyfolk. She’s also cast aside Emmet, apparently unsettled by his manipulation of the dead dillhole. That weekend, quiet, lovely Mandy Lane and her new asshole friends decide to have a little drunk-n-fuck get together at an isolated ranch. Booze, drugs, and blowjobs are exchanged.
It isn’t until one-third of the way through the movie that you actually realize what Mandy Lane is: An almost by-the-numbers salasā fēlam. But there’s a big difference between Mandy Lane and your run-of-the-mill Friday the 13th knock-offs. Here, the killer’s identity is revealed fairly early on, and the motivation seemingly apparent. But what’s impressive and so unusual about Mandy Lane is that the heroine isn’t a whiny, insufferable damsel, and the supporting players are never asked to play sacrifice-yourself-for-the-virgin. Indeed, they’re self-absorbed pindicks and drunktards without an ounce of hero credibility. And yet, Levine creates so much tension that you squirm painfully when you see the same loathsome horny teenagers you’d be glad to see picked off in another slasher film taken to the woodshed of afterlife here. But wait! There’s more. A twist! A satisfying one, no less! But I would be remiss to reveal it, should Mandy Lane ever find its way into theaters or, at least, onto DVD.
The good news is that Amber Heard, who plays Mandy, is poised to be the next big thing: She’s got seven movies either in production or slated for release over the next two years, and most of them are fairly promising. She may ultimately become the starletard of the future (she’s a younger-looking Scarlett Johansson), but if it gets Mandy Lane in theaters, it’s probably worth it, especially if it leads to more projects for Levine.
Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. You can email him or leave a comment below.
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Comments
Posted by: Carrie at February 12, 2009 11:34 AM
Hmm, I can get this through my dvd rental, but the reviews on there are not as kind. Who do I trust??
I guess I should watch and see for myself.