The Crush

The Crush (1993) is Alicia Silverstone's first film, and its real story happened off screen. The plot: Nick moves to a new city, takes a job at a magazine, and the fourteen year old daughter of his landlords becomes fixated on him. When the attention is not returned she becomes dangerous. Writer and director Alan Shapiro based the story on something that actually happened involving his neighbour. The problem is that he also took the girl's name from that real person, unchanged. Six months after release her family sued, arguing their daughter had been portrayed as obsessive and psychotic. The case settled. The studio had to change the name in every subsequent version and did it with dubbing. There was no budget to bring the original cast back, so the name is voiced by other actors, and an attentive viewer can hear the difference. Old VHS and laserdisc copies still carry the original name; DVD and television prints carry the new one. The film sits inside the nineties erotic thriller cycle and carries all of that cycle's problems: it is built on the sexualisation of a child and it is uncomfortable now. Silverstone was noticed for this, and Clueless followed two years later. It runs 89 minutes. Good for: nineties thrillers and cult B pictures. Less good for: the sexualisation of a minor is the foundation of the film, and it contains violence and harassment.