Movies I Haven't Seen - "For Keeps"

Greetings, students, and welcome to the first class of the John Maxwell Film School.  Class is in session and all have assembled.  We begin our school's run today with a film that was released the very year that I was born: 1988.  That film is "For Keeps", the film which brought to a close the Molly Ringwald teen film era of cinema.  The reason I choose this film first is for a very simple reason: it was the next entry on my Netflix queue.  As you will see, that very queue will influence the films we will see.

 

I should have told you this in last week's greeting, but I just forgot to add it in.  Now, a rundown on how this class will run.  First, a summary of events in the movie.  Then, a nicely-written discussion on the film by yours truly.  If there are any questions, please leave them in the comments section below.  I'll answer them at the top of next week's posting.  These questions is how all of us will learn about the film.  If you wish, you can watch the film as well.  I'll announce each week's offering at the bottom of last week's offering.  That way, we can all enjoy the good and/or the bad.

 

Now, with all of that out of the way, onward to the movie.  We begin with our star Molly and her on-screen boyfriend... at the moment of baby creation.  I'm not kidding.  This movie opens with the sex scene with only about a minute of set-up.  The sex (if you can call it that) takes place over the opening credits.  After that, we see Molly's character of Darcy looking at a nearby college.  Is it time to mention that the film's story takes place in Wisconsin?  It does.  Now, Darcy is trying to get in as a journalism major.  However, the school feels her essay isn't enough and ask her to write a new one.

 

Soon enough, the result of all that opening credit sex is revealed.  Darcy finds out she's pregnant and must tell the father, name of Stan.  Stan is, to say the least, surprised.  The movie's pacing brings us quickly to Thanksgiving, where the two are debating how to tell their parents.  Darcy's mother wants the both of them to go to Paris while Stan's father wants him to go to Caltech.  However, the news does come out and an argument takes place to decide what to do with the baby.  Finally, it is decided that the baby must die and an abortion is scheduled.

 

However, Darcy is unable to go through with it and soon enough, that piece of news is given to the parents.  The two lovers decide to move into their own place.  After some more time, the question of marriage is popped and accepted.  The two wed and they go through the paces, as they say.  Stan, after being fired from his father's shoe store, takes a job at one at the mall.  Meanwhile, Darcy goes through a series of jobs, even being fired from one when her growing stomach prevents her from doing her duties.  Eventually, the baby is born and given the name of Theadosia, or Thea for short.

 

Darcy, however, goes into post-partum depression and has a difficult time connecting with Thea, leaving Stan to do most of the baby chores.  Meanwhile, the couple try to mend their relationship with their parents for the baby's sake.  While Darcy's mother get very used to being a grandmother, Stan's parents are split on their treatment.  Stan's mother is also getting used to being a grandmother, while Stan's father has a hard time accepting being a grandfather.  Finally, one night, Darcy is left alone with Thea and the presence of a prowler turns on her material side and she protects the baby.

 

It turns out that the prowler was Stan's father, who has decided it's time to get over himself and being a grandfather to his granddaughter.  However, things again fall apart when Stan does gets accepted to Caltech.  However, they have no married freshman housing, so Stan decides to lie and say he was turned down.  The truth does come out, however, and Darcy decides that Stan needs to have a future so she leaves him.   Darcy's mother is happy that now, the three of them can go to Paris.  Stan, however, wants Darcy back.  Things, however, do their best to keep them apart.

 

Finally, as Darcy graduates from night school.... did I forget to mention that Darcy's school forced her to go to night school to save face?  Anyway, as she graduates, she is confronted by Stan, who tells her that he has applied to the same school she was and that if she comes back to him, they can go to school together and remain a couple.  The movie ends with Darcy and Stan having a reunion and the two deciding to be together forever.  All in all, this movie seems to be a very weird outing, even for someone like Molly Ringwald, who has gone on to some stranger pieces of cinema.

 

For starters, the film's opening is weird.  When I first saw the title card of the movie, it reminded me of the wormhole scene in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (Star Trek will figure a lot here).  It then dawned on me what it was.  The whole rest of the credits is scenes of sperm and egg meeting and floating away.  I take it that it is supposed to be the conception of the baby Thea.  However, unless you've watched the rest of the movie, it barely comes off that way.  Plus. it isn't much of a sex scene, both Darcy and Stan remain almost clothed during what we see of the two's part in it.  The rest is the weird images of the credits.

 

I must take point of the movie's idea of pacing.  In the first 30 minutes of the movie, the story covers the total of three months.  The movie, in five minutes, goes from Darcy at the college to the pregnancy test.  I figure that time span as at least three to four weeks, for her to notice her missing period and for her to get the test without warranting suspicion.  The best instance of this is when Darcy tells Stan that she didn't go through with the abortion.  The very next scene, by jump cut, is a street at CHRISTMAS!.  In one half-second cut, we jump three weeks. 

 

This kind of jump cut is also present when she tells Stan about the baby, the movie then jumps from early October to Thanksgiving.  Don't worry, the weird time-traveling jump cuts go away and are replaced by plodding.  To me, after Darcy has the baby, the movie suddenly loses attention of the story.  Scenes of Darcy going through her depression, Stan trying to take care of the baby, him dealing with the new grandparents, and just random scenes are edited together without any connection whatsoever.  This describes about 20 minutes of the movie.  I've heard that scriptwriters should manage screen time in service of the story.  This film fails at that.

 

One weird moment seems to make up for the film's lack of nudity during the opening sex scene.  It is a shower scene with our couple.  However, no real nudity is displayed as it is a PG-13 outing here.  However, it tries to have a laugh by saying that Darcy has never seen Stan naked before.  Let me remind you, these two are having a baby!.  She has never seen Stan's member but she has had it inside her long enough to make a kid.  This scene has no real purpose except for a laugh that makes no sense.  The Internet contains some real Ringwald nudity but this movie has none. 

 

The movie also wins a racial stereotype award for the wedding scene that, from my watching, is supposed to be a Korean-run church.  The preacher at the ceremony is nothing but a stereotype, as he talks in the usual "L is R, R is L" speech pattern.  "Rove, Hope, and Chality" might best sum up his whole speech in the movie.  The movie needs to learn how to deal with racism.  If you've watched the news lately, racial stereotypes have apparently cost someone their career.  In this case, the movie just a pass because no one is paying attention at this point.

 

That's another thing.  The movie fails to maintain constant interest in the goings-on.  Half of the movie can't decide if it is a comedy or a drama.  The very idea of teenage pregnancy is a serious topic in this day and age.  To see it in the 1980s is strange.  I did mention that Darcy's school forced her out due to her pregnancy.  The teacher who made her leave said that many girls look up to Darcy to set an example.  If that's the case, show them that having a child is not the end of the world.  Fear is not a form of birth control.  Darcy does seem to fight it but gives up because the movie decides to move forward.

 

I must mention the movie's idea of humor.  I've mention a couple of instances but there are a lot more.  Stan and Darcy both have a annoying little sibling to bring that comedic relief that's not needed.  In the summary, I said that Darcy gets fired from one job because her stomach.  That scene in the movie is Darcy working at a diner.  She hears the French fryer go off, telling her that the fries are done.  However, she can't shut off the fryer because her stomach is too big to let her reach the button.  The boss comes in, says her name, and it is said she was fired in the next scene.  There's a boycott in this guy's future for firing a pregnant teenager for having too big a stomach.

 

Another runner is that the fact that no one can pronounce Stan's last name of Bobrucz.   I should tell you that when I type that name, it was red-lined.  The shoe store that Stan's father is called Mr. B's Shoes for that reason.  Now, I can pronounce that name because I live in the Midwest and such names are common.  If we are to believe that these characters live in the Midwest, they should be able to pronounce that name.   Instead, we are treated to mispronunciations by actors who are clearly from other parts of the country.  In terms of selling its setting, it fails.  However, it does help point out real Midwesterners because they say the name correctly.

 

One more runner about this movie is the mother's obsession with all things French.  I mentioned that the mother wants to take her daughter to Paris.   No reason is given for this in the movie.  Now, I've done some research on this movie and its stars and I know why this is in there.  You see, our star Miss Ringwald is actually fluent in French.  Naturally, having such a star, the minds behind the film would show it off.  It's only one sentence but it's a nice moment.  I would like to have seen more of this in the movie.  It might have made this film a bit more watchable if, occasionally, there was some French being said.

In conclusion, this movie is a mess but a nicely-put-together mess.  The late Roger Ebert actually gave this movie three stars.  He pointed out that the outcome here is better than most teenage mothers have.  He also applauded Ringwald for her portrayal of postpartum depression.  Most critics, however, weren't kind and it signaled the end of Ringwald's reign as America's sweetheart.  In this man's opinion, it is an enjoyable outing.  I've seen worse in my life.  Next week, the subject will be the next movie in my Netflix queue.  The film that took a Robert Lewis Stevenson classic and threw it at the wall.  It's "Jekyll & Hyde... Together Again".

This is John Maxwell, saying class dismissed!