The last film I know of that opened with “We Got the Beat” was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So as long as we’re retelling the 1980s, why stop there? Why not cast Alicia Silverstone in the central role and then set the movie as an 80s flashback and have a soundtrack full of covers of hits-at-the-time? Oh, you did all that. You even gave Alicia her own fashion thing again, huh? Well, why are you bothering to make a new movie at all? Why don’t you just have Netflix immediately link you to Clueless or Fast Times or the original Valley Girl or something?
The story of Valley Girl is sort of a modern El Lay version of Romeo and Juliet, except the star-crossed lovers’ taboo is more nature than nurture; he comes from punk and graffiti while she comes from a world where vapid is a cultural status symbol. The original 1983 version starred Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman: one of those two would go on to win an Oscar and make films for decades more; the other was more fortunate. But I digress.
The 2020 remake of this tale is a musical, and not a great musical at that. For fun I re-imagined a Valley Girl remake every five years or so…
Valley Girl 2020 doesn’t lack for problems. We start right in with present-day Julie (Silverstone) scolding her daughter and punishing her with the story of mom’s first romance. Oh, Alicia, are you going to talk about the time you fell for your mock step-brother Paul Rudd? No? Awwww. Apparently, mom’s time was marked by random flashmobs singing knockoff covers. Huh. Not the 80s I remember.
This film has several problems. I will touch upon a few. First it has an obvious Grease problem: the players are in high school, but our lead Valley Girl, Jessica Rothe, is 32. She’s already too old to play those Happy Death Day college roles she favors. Meg Whitman is 31 and has been playing a high schooler since the century began. Logan Paul, the 2020 answer to William Zabka, is “only” 25 and looks older than all of them.
However, the miscasting doesn’t end at age. Not by a long shot. FWIW, I have no
idea how old our Randy (Josh Whitehouse) is. I couldn’t find that piece of information on imdb or Wikipedia, which is not a good sign, btw. Whitehouse may well be the correct age, who knows? What’s important to know is he neither looks the part nor sounds the part. For an inner city punk, Josh Whitehouse looks about as Sid Vicious as Josh Gad. I could live with that. Fine; it’s all make-believe anyway. What I couldn’t roll with is the fact that Whitehouse ain’t a great singer. Not at all. And he has a band in the movie.
Many films would find a lead male who can’t sing a hindrance. Especially musical films. Not Valley Girl. It rolled right along fully knowing that Josh Whitehouse has equally a lousy voice for musicals as if he were Russell Crowe or Pierce Brosnan. Except he isn’t Russell Crowe, of course. Josh Whitehouse was never, nor –I daresay- ever will be an Oscar-winning A-lister. And when you hear what he does to “You Might Think,” well, let’s just say I never before in my life had the thought, “I miss the voice of Ric Ocasek.”
I can see Valley Girl tried. It wanted to be a Blues Brothers kind of film where music can erupt at any time for any reason and the cast will join along for fun. That’s great … except the screenplay is dicey, the players are wrong and the music is weak. This kind of film could save itself with one or two absolute blockbuster numbers, but the cover invention here extended as far as: “Why don’t you start by saying the lyrics atonally and see how long it takes for the audience to figure out what 80s jam you’re going for.” That’s not good enough for me.
♪You might think I’m lazy to make Valley part two
Maybe you think I’m lucky they greenlit this, it’s true
This iteration is mild
With invention reviled
You might think it’s boorish
And feeds on less, Clue-
You might think it’s lazy
We just cast folks we knew♫
Rated PG-13, 102 Minutes
Director: Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Writer: Amy Talkington
Genre: Ummm, why did you remake this again?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who haven’t actually seen this story or heard these songs, perhaps
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The nostalgic and picky
♪ Parody Inspired by “You Might Think”
