A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

WILD THINGS : on FOXES (1980)

FROM THE MGM STABLE

FOXES (1980)

CAST: JODIE FOSTER, SCOTT BAIO CHERIE CURRIE, MARILYN KAGAN, KANDICE STROH, SALLY KELLERMAN, RANDY QUAID, LOIS SMITH, LAURA DERN, ADAM FAITH.

DIRECTION : ADRIAN LYNE.

The Jodie Foster led ensemble takes on adolescence's prime pangs and picks itself up by the bootstraps, in this 1980 take on those initial years of induction into the big, bad world.

****

In his directorial debut, future helmer of FATAL ATTRACTION, 9&1/2 WEEKS, INDECENT PROPOSAL and UNFAITHFUL Adrian Lyne trained his lenses on the social engine fuelling disco era's concrete jungle. It's an L. A. of teenage ecstasy and reckless passions, in a city still known and often parodied for its unhealthy youth culture. Replace the set-up and California's retro heat and dust can be seamlessly transplanted to any urban center, in any part of the planet attuned to the cultural zeitgeist of its times, down to the very present. So what here appears dated to some modern viewers had relevant currency back then (and still does)

Conveniently then Lyne avoids painting the lead quartet's world as some fantasy land obstructed by harsh realities of adolescence. It begins on the most humble note where the four girls are shown waking up post a sleepover, to the lilting, piano led strains of Donna Summer's ON THE RADIO in its ballad form. Incidentally, this was among the final hits of the preceding decade before 1980 set in and so its placement is appropriate. The theme of friendship hence reigns supreme from here.