Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie Review

All Surface Flash

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 29, 2011

In 1976, Brian De Palma made Carrie, from a script by Larry Cohen and a novel by Stephen King. Twelve years later, in 1988, Michael Lehman made Heathers, from a script by Daniel Waters. A little over another decade having passed, in 1999, director Darren Stein made Jawbreaker from his own script, which reworked large portions of plot from Carrie (and alluded to it repeatedly), but jettisoned the telekinetic horror story in favor of the cartoonish black humor that made Heathers so distinctive.

Carrie is a horror standard, and Heathers has become a cult classic. Who remembers Jawbreaker? And has anyone seen a subsequent film from Darren Stein? There are a few listed at IMDb, but I didn't recognize them either.

It's not as if Jawbreaker has nothing going for it. The cast is appealing, and almost every member, especially Judy Greer and Julie Benz, has done exceptional work in other projects and do the best they can here. Individual sequences display wit and visual flair, like the title sequence that follows the manufacture of the eponymous candy that plays a crucial role in the plot. As the huge confection rolls and is lifted through a series of specialized machines, intercut with childhood snapshots, it's hypnotic to watch.

Maybe Stein should stick to short films about objects, because when he starts dealing with people, he quickly gets into trouble. Even exaggerated comic grotesques need to have their stories told credibly; indeed, the more extreme the caricature, the more skill required by the directorial hand guiding the narrative. Carrie White's religious nutjob of a mother wasn't just terrifying because of Piper Laurie's performance, but because Brian De Palma understood how to situate that performance within the story so that the audience experiences it from Carrie's point of view and understands what drives her. But Stein exhibits no such abilities in Jawbreaker. He gets plenty of wild performances, but they feel detached from each other -- and that's not a good thing when your script includes characters like Pam Grier's police detective whose name (repeatedly said with a straight face) is "Vera Cruz".

The reigning queens -- the "Heathers" -- of Reagan High School are Courtney Shayne (Rose McGowan), Marcie Fox (Benz), Julie Freedman (Gayheart) and Elizabeth Purr ( Charlotte Ayanna). Elizabeth is the sweet one, the one who, besides being beautiful and popular, will take the time to stop and help a geek like Fern Mayo (Judy Greer) pick up her books and papers when she drops them in the hall. Maybe it's that sweetness that provokes Elizabeth's three friends to play a cruel prank on her every year for her birthday. On the morning of her 17th, they sneak into Elizabeth's bedroom very early, tape her mouth, tie her up and toss her into the trunk of Courtney's car. The plan is to drive her to a local restaurant, where they'll force-feed her pancakes (Elizabeth being a calorie-counter), then leave her tied to the school flagpole in her bra and panties.

Why anyone's best friends would inflict this on them for their birthday is a question we don't get time to contemplate, because when Courtney, Marcie and Julie pop the trunk in the restaurant parking lot, Elizabeth is dead. She choked on the enormous jawbreaker Courtney stuffed in her mouth before taping it shut. Julie and Marcie want to go to the police, but Courtney insists they all attend school and act normally. A proper little sociopath, she get over her best friend's death in an instant and focuses on what's important in life: her.

That's the pre-credit sequence, and the rest of Jawbreaker, at its most literal level, is the story of a spectacularly inept cover-up. Elizabeth's parents are out of town -- they're played, in cameos, by two Carrie veterans, William Katt and P.J. Soles -- so Courtney decides to get Elizabeth's body back into bed and make the whole thing look like a rape/murder. Julie has the biggest doubts about this (possibly because she's seen enough TV to have some notion of modern forensics), but Courtney's real problem is supplied by Fern Mayo, who has been dispatched by Reagan High's Ms. Sherwood (Carol Kane) to bring Elizabeth the assignments she missed at school that day. Finding Courtney and her cohorts in flagrante faking a crime scene, Fern is speechless and appalled until Courtney dangles an irresistible forbidden fruit in front of her: Courtney, the high priestess of Reagan High's in crowd, will make her cool.

The resulting makeover scene flies by quickly (and is grotesquely intercut with Elizabeth's preparation for burial), but if you slow it down, the various cosmetic professionals look more like demons than hairdressers and beauticians. Fern is reinvented as "Vylette", and before long she's out-Courtneying Courtney and taking Julie's place. (Julie, meanwhile, demonstrates her new-found conscience by donning glasses that "spoil" her looks and dating a member of the drama club instead of a jock.) Still, things seem to be going Courtney's way when Detective Cruz arrests a suspect for Elizabeth's murder, based on some DNA evidence that mysteriously appeared at the crime scene. But there's still the prom, where Courtney is a shoo-in for prom queen -- and anyone familiar with Carrie know that things don't go well for the prom queen.

The single biggest problem with Jawbreaker is that Stein can't decide whose story he's telling or from what point of view the audience should view events as they unfold. Is it Fern's? She opens the movie by introducing Elizabeth and her friends and narrating the events leading up to Elizabeth's death. But then she take a back seat until it's time to morph into Vylette, at which point she becomes just another element in Courtney's cover-up. Is it Rebecca Gayheart's Julie? She's barely a presence until the very end, when she helps bring Courtney down, and her sudden gumption comes almost as an afterthought. Is it, God forbid, Courtney? In Rose McGowan's portrayal, she's certainly the most memorable continuous presence in the film, but who'd want to spend even an hour looking at the world through her eyes?

Heathers had Veronica's sturdy voiceover as a narrative through line. Carrie displayed De Palma's early mastery in the effortless way he seemed to shift the story between the points of view of Sissy Spacek's Carrie and Amy Irving's Sue, bringing them together at the end for one last good scare. (Joss Whedon calls this "handing off" the story from one character to another.) But Stein's movie merely flits from joke to joke, grotesque to grotesque, parody to parody, without cohering into a story with a beginning, middle and end. It starts, and then it stops.

Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The cinematographer for Jawbreaker was Amy Vincent, who is Craig Brewer's regular DP, most recently on the remake of Footloose. Vincent certainly knows how to light the film's female leads for the requirements of the scene, whether it's looking glamorous, dowdy (as both Greer and Gayheart have to appear at various points) or maniacal (McGowan's specialty). It probably helps that no attempt is made to disguise that the actresses are all older than the high school students they're playing (which is probably intended as part of the joke). This allows them to wear much more expensive clothes and make-up than you'd be likely to see even at the richest private prep schools, let alone what is clearly intended as a public melting pot.

Taking her cue from the title, Vincent lit the film with bright candy-color hues, and the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from Sony/Image reproduces these with suitable pop. The colors are never oversaturated, but they make a statement; indeed, in many scenes they're the most interesting thing happening. Black levels are excellent, leading to an abundance of fine detail in complexions, clothing patterns and the minutia of such locations as the enormous Purr home. A light pattern of grain is visible but never obtrusive, since most of the film takes place in brightly lit locales. There is no evidence of high-frequency filtering or transfer-induced ringing, and the lack of any extras allows this 88-minute film to reside comfortably on a BD-25 without compression artifacts.

Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Whatever the weaknesses of the film, there's nothing wrong with the 5.1 soundtrack, presented here in DTS lossless. The sound designers took Jawbreaker's cartoonish style as license to free themselves from realism. As a result, the wipes that frequently accomplish scene transitions are usually accompanied by an excessively loud tearing sound (almost like a reverberating page turn). Otherwise small sounds, such as Detective Cruz slamming the titular candy on a table during an interrogation, take on mammoth proportions. The transition from Elizabeth's parents arriving home to the police photographing the crime scene makes effective use of the surrounds, as does Fern's elaborate makeover montage and the concluding prom scene. Dialogue is generally clear, although tone is often more important than substance when these girls are talking. The pop tune selection, which is an interesting mix of old (The Cars), older (Bing Crosby) and new at the time (the Donnas), has good fidelity and musicality, and the serviceable score by Stephen Endelman (Redbelt, Flirting with Disaster) is well presented.

Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

None. Sony's original DVD contained a director's commentary, production notes and a trailer.

Jawbreaker Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jawbreaker is pretty to look at and occasionally amusing, and the Blu-ray is technically proficient. But the film is strictly second rate. Rent first, or, if you prefer to buy, wait until the disc goes on special.