Boy Meets Girl

THINGS HAPPEN in movies that just don't happen in what we call real life. Some films afford their audiences a fantastic escape from daily existence, others, by pretending to be plausible, simply embarrass James Foley's Reckless is the embarrassing sort. Its portrayal of two teenagers trying to escape an American mill town--a virtual rewrite of John Sayles's 1982 Baby. It's You--is annoying rather than inspiring.

The movie's plot revolves around the sexual involvement (the script makes it hard to call it love) between a conventional teenaged girl and an Angry Young Man Tracey Prescott (Daryl Hannah) is a pretty, blonde teenager from a wealthy family. She is surrounded by boring, anxious people, from a standardized younger brother (Billy Jacoby) to an overbearing, money-minded mother (Lois Smith) to a bland boyfiend. Randy Daniels (Adam Baldwin), who wears expensive sweaters and is class president.

Tracey's life moves along merrily in its limited sphere until she encounters Johnny Rourke (Aidan Quinn) at a high school dance. Repeated shots of Rourke reviving up his motorcycle, along with scenes of him fighting with his alcoholic father show--in conventional. Hollywood style--that Rourke is from the other side of the tracks. Propelled by a sexual attraction she is just beginning to understand. Tracey follows Rourke on a program of rebellion and destruction that culminates in their escape from a high school Career Day on Rourke's motorcycle: complete with Tracey's friends calling her names and her little brother cheering.

This might have worked if Foley and scriptwriter Chris Columbus hadn't been so heavy-handed Hannah as Tracey gives a fairly convincing portrayal of limp, youthful resentment. Unfortunately, the script prevents her from displaying any other emotions as she faces the choice between her institutionalized life and the freedom of being with Rourke--choosing differently each chance she gets. Tracey's life at home and in school is represented so shallowly--her bedroom, for example, is decorated in flowers like a cheap innocence metaphor--that her indecision seems fickle rather than agonized. Her passion for Rourke takes on the same superficiality, and Hannah's performance becomes a mere foil for Quinn's.

Perhaps Columbus and Foley were counting on Quinn to pull the film together. And the film almost gives him a chance to act well. He provokes the football coach (Cliff De Young) to kick him off the team, ending his career as high school football star. Then Rourke returns home only to quarrel with his alcoholic father (Kenneth McMillan) and to be kicked out of the house. Later, when his father dies. Quinn almost has a chance to exhibit sensitivity at the burial. But his performance is plagued by overkill. He acts with such superfluous violence and unprovoked anger that his character fails to be realistic. Some of the dialogue is so stereotyped as to be awkward:

Rourke: Do you want me?

Tracey: Yes.

Rourke: Then say it. Say "I want you," Say it.

And Quinn's big line in one of the love scenes is the oft-heard "I just want to stay inside you like this forever."

IN ALL FAIRNESS, a few sparks of well-timed humor relieve the melodrama. Tracey's mother returns early from a weekend away, almost catching her and Rourke under the covers. Rourke escapes out the window, and Mrs. Prescott's big news is a credit card for darling Tracey. However, such spots of lightness vanish in the film's overwhelming murk.

The film's repeated associations of sex with violence and both with liberation raise more serious questions. Rourke and Tracey break into their high school at night and trash the front office while Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" plays on the soundtrack. Perhaps the scene tries to terrify adults by showing typical teenagers in a Lord of the Flies atmosphere--or perhaps the filmmakers are advancing a suggestion for high school students everywhere? It's hard to tell. Then Rourke and Tracey commence lovemaking by hitting each other with sponge bats; the message isn't even subliminal.

And the film's portrayal of Tracey is no more subtle. Sexually passive, fickle, and easily led. Tracey's character only reinforces an all-too-familiar image of women. Even her final assertiveness in breaking out of her traditional mold fails to liberate her from the role of perpetual follower. One tends to wonder if art imitates life or insults it.

The film's most unrealistic message emerges through the repeated scenes of violence without recrimination. Rourke drives his motorcycle right into the school building, and Rourke burns down his house after his father's death. Not only is all this destruction tiresome, but it is too unrealistic to make a point. The filmmakers admire the violence rather than simply depicting it, and the film's final message is as clear as it is hackneyed: The only way to grow up is to find a new hero and run away.