Review of Crazy/Beautiful (2001) by Edith N — 09 Jan 2008

There is, to quote another person's review of something else, one good line in this movie, and I will tell it to you now so that you don't have to watch the movie yourself. "I called your friend Fredo, who apparently doesn't believe in phones." I am given to understand that a director's cut would be better, but for one thing, it doesn't exist so far as anyone can tell (though there is audio commentary with the director on the DVD, but it's also with Kirsten Dunst, and so I can't take it), and for another, it would contain much of the same material that's in the movie in the first place, so I still wouldn't like it much.

Kirsten Dunst plays Nicole, a drunken (and apparently heroin-riddled, but that got cut) little troublemaker whom we first encounter cleaning up what I believe to be the beach at Santa Monica as community service. (She claims it's because she'd knocked over a 7-11, but I suspect it's a drug charge.) She hits it off with Carlos (Jay Hernandez), who is actually trying to make something of his life. He's trying to find someone to sponsor him to Annapolis (which I really don't think should be necessary anymore, but who listens to me?); he has transferred to a school two hours by bus away from his home because he can get a better education there. They fall in love, and she does horrible, horrible things to his ambitions.

Apparently, in the original cut, Nicole was shown to be a junkie, which made her self-destructive, selfish behaviour a little more understandable. In the version we have presented to us, she's an obnoxious, spoiled little girl who apparently doesn't understand the concept of pants. I think we are supposed to see her straightening herself out as inspirational, but to me, it falls flat. It's not believable at all to me. It feels like one more ploy to get her daddy's attention. She is also perfectly willing to make things difficult for Carlos, whose life was already difficult enough. She nearly destroys his chances for his dreams of being a Navy pilot, and she doesn't even seem to regret it. Her stepmother isn't very pleasant to her, but she doesn't give her stepmother any reason to be. I simply do not like her.

This story could have been used to say something interesting; it's certainly possible that the director's cut did. But it sure as hell doesn't in this version. Aside from the fact that I don't like Kirsten Dunst (I can't really believe her as an actress in [i]Spider-Man[/i], and she assuredly isn't beautiful enough to be playing Mary Jane in the first place), she is inherently unlikable here, and you feel that Carlos could be doing way, way better for himself. It's hard to understand his willingness to throw everything away for this creature.

I understand there was supposed to be a message about racial relations, but I'm not seeing it here. Maybe it, along with Nicole's basic motivations and likability, got left on the cutting room floor in the search for a PG-13.