Smooth Talk

Connie is fifteen and on her summer holiday. Her mother criticises constantly and holds her sister up as an example, and her father does not speak. Connie goes to the mall with her friends, goes to the beach, crosses to the drive-in restaurant in the evenings and talks with older boys there. She is trying herself out: how she walks, how she looks, how she speaks. One Sunday the family goes on a picnic and she stays home. A car arrives. The man in it knows her name and comes to the door. Joyce Chopra directs. Laura Dern plays Connie and Treat Williams the man. The source is Joyce Carol Oates's short story. The film won the grand jury prize at Sundance. Its first half rests on daily life and is nearly without event; the second half narrows into a single scene. The scene at the door is long and unbroken; no violence is shown and the tension comes entirely out of the talk. Laura Dern was eighteen in the part and the performance is the most cited of her early work. The ending differs from the story; Oates accepted the change and defended the director's choice. The matter it works at is the limit; the character cannot control the result of her own trying out. Who it is for: viewers who like American independent cinema and films that build tension through talk. Who it is not for: the first half is slow, the subject uncomfortable, and the ending uncertain.