crazy/beautiful

Stockwell was being leaned on by cowardly Hollywood executives. The executives, always more concerned with box office gross than art, were insistent on one thing: make the film less risque. They wanted the party scenes toned down, they never wanted a lead character to take a swig from a beer bottle. Basically, they wanted the film's message to be subdued.

Stockwell had no choice. He made the cuts, reshot some scenes and submitted a new cut of the film. The executives were happy. They could now give the film a wider released, thus fattening their pocketbooks. In a fairy tale world audiences would cheer. This is no fairy tale world, however, and audiences do not cheer these kinds of requirements laid upon artists.

So, rather than being a message film, possibly about the dangers of adolescent drinking and the way it affects more than just the one sipping from the bottle, the film instead had to be about the budding relationship between two teenagers from different social worlds. It's a good thing that Stockwell knew how to make the latter type of film, it's what we got, and it's suprisingly good.

Lucky for him he hired two very capable young leads. Jay Hernandez plays an ambitious hispanic teenager living in a less-than-economically-prosperous neighborhood. Hernandez handles the role with a good deal of charm. Kirsten Dunst, however, has simply become the best actress of her age in Hollywood. Dunst gives her character convincing frailty and deals with the issues her character with honesty. She's a tortured, misdirected teen living in a wealthy neighborhood and a Congressman father. The pair come from drastically different cultures with varying dreams. They're quite the unlikely pair. Initially their physical attraction brings them together, and eventually their different worlds threaten to separate them.

Their relationship is handled in a humane, realistic manner. The script seems to realize the potentially destructive problems facing an interracial relationship. The script enables the characters to work through them through trial and error, but it never seems trivialized. It's a fine piece of work, creating believable and for the most part, likable characters (despite their shortcomings).

crazy/beautiful is a teen film that is unquestionably above the rest. It's a mature film that deals with real issues rather than sensationalism. Stockwell, though his message has been subdued, has still crafted an entertaining film. Now, if other teenage films learned a lesson or two, we'd all be the better off.

On a scale of 1 to 10 exposed midriffs : 7