Verdict
Summary
Based on a coming of age novel called “Aren’t You Even Gonna Kiss Me Goodbye?” by William Richert, who adapted his own script and also directed, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon should’ve been an easy slam-dunk movie with the very game and fresh-faced cast who were all at the peak of their appeal, but despite its best efforts, the movie hangs on the very slight shoulders of Phoenix, who plays an incredibly unlikable character who is never for one moment able to elicit an ounce of sympathy, much less feel like the underdog he’s made out to be.
Plot:
A self-centered teenager juggles multiple relationships and a desperate desire to raise some money in 24 hours so that he can go to Hawaii.
Review:
It’s the ’60s, and slick teenager Jimmy Reardon (River Phoenix) has recently graduated high school and has a very limited time before his dad (Paul Koslo) forces him to go to college at his alma mater, which Jimmy has a fervent resistance to. Jimmy needs a plan, and fast. It doesn’t help that he’s a promiscuous tomcat, sowing his oats wherever and whenever the opportunity arises, and after a quick, casual fling with a girl he meets at a coffee bar (one of those beatnik places where snap poetry is all the rage) ends in him forking over a hundred bucks and change to the girl for an abortion, his college fund is depleted. He’s got a virginal friend (played by Matthew Perry, pre-Friends) who’s in the money, but Jimmy constantly abuses his generosity, and so he turns to his hustler kid sister for twenty bucks, which means he needs at least eighty more from other sources. He’s got a rich girlfriend (played by Meredith Salenger) who won’t put out – sex or dough – and so he tries with another girlfriend (played by Ione Skye) who has some kinky fetishes, but he constantly strikes out, despite his best efforts to raise some cash. One of the girls is going on a summer-long vacation to Hawaii the next morning, and so he shifts his focus to making enough bread to buy a plane ticket to go with her, but one thing leads to another, and he ends up completely blowing every chance and burning every bridge he’s got to cinders with his selfish, self-centered and abrasive methods to meeting his needs and ignoring everyone else’s.
Based on a coming of age novel called “Aren’t You Even Gonna Kiss Me Goodbye?” by William Richert, who adapted his own script and also directed, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon should’ve been an easy slam-dunk movie with the very game and fresh-faced cast who were all at the peak of their appeal, but despite its best efforts, the movie hangs on the very slight shoulders of Phoenix, who plays an incredibly unlikable character who is never for one moment able to elicit an ounce of sympathy, much less feel like the underdog he’s made out to be. Everyone around him swoons for him and enables him except his father, who is the only character who really seems grounded in reality and is right about Jimmy. In another timeline and universe, Jimmy might be pals with Ferris Bueller, another unlikable teenaged prick, but at least Ferris had the intelligence and self awareness to know that he was an acquired taste. Bill Conti did the affecting and quite excellent score to this.
Kino Lorber has just released a Blu-ray edition of A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, and the film marks a notable upgrade from the previous DVD from Image. Special features include an audio commentary by a pair of film historians, plus the trailer and a slipcover.
