Chelsea Alexandra
In the opening moments of Sophia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, we are introduced to a thirteen-year-old girl, Cecelia Lisbon. After attempting to end her life, her treating doctor approaches her, “What are you doing here, honey?” he continues, “You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” The camera focuses on Cecilia lying in a hospital bed “Obviously, Doctor,” she said, “you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.” When thinking about the scope of teenage girlhood, it is a line I am constantly thinking of.
Although the reality of being a teenage girl sometimes is not as dramatique as Cecila makes it, while you are in it, it feels like it. With raging hormones running rampant in your body chemistry, you tend to romanticize the world around you. You feel invisible and fragile all at the same time. Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk was released in 1985 yet it still echoes the horrors and beauty that it can be to be a teenage girl.
The film is centered around Connie, played by a nineteen-year-old Laura Dern. Connie is a fairly typical fifteen-year-old girl. When it comes to her home life, she is pretty blase about it. It isn’t the perfect home but through a heightened teenage lens it can be considered a nightmare for Connie. She bikers with her mother, they don’t see eye to eye most of the time. Her mother (Mary Kay Place) has called out Connie’s selfishness occasionally. Connie’s selfishness is nothing out of the ordinary for someone her age. In classic teenage fashion, Connie is harmlessly self-involved but completely naive.
Smooth Talk begins with three girls—Connie, Laura (Margaret Welsh), and Jill (Sara Inglis)—as they sleep on the beach soaking up the sun. Once awoken, they realize they are running late to get home and decide to hitch a ride with a passerby. A much older man driving a pickup truck stopped for them. Laura immediately hops in to sit next to the strange man. However, Jill is fearful of him. The older man singles her out, asking if she would play some music for him from the boombox. Connie decides to sit in the truck’s bed. This forces Jill to sit next to Laura, inches away from this man.
It is this moment that sets the tone and creates the stress and anxiety felt with every interaction these young teenage girls have with an older man.
Chopra captures the essence of teenage girlhood that remains timeless. When you are young, you see the world through rose-colored glasses. Your friends are the only people who “get you” and you want to spend every waking moment with them. The trio takes trips to the mall, going to the local hang-out spot to flirt with the local boys. They walk a fine line flirting with disaster. The girls aren’t seeking out real trouble, just a little fun yet when it is found they run once it finds them. Their invincibility and lack of understanding of the scary realities allow them to get close to the edge.
The unsettling feeling that sits in the pit of your stomach from the moment the film starts, follows you as the girls hang out at the mall. Connie and Laura are harmless in their flirting. All in good fun, they will seek out boys who are relatively in their age range. They playfully embarrass their meeker friend Jill and try to get her to talk to a teen boy by the name of Stan. However, a group of young men, much older than them, decide to shoot their shot with Connie, Laura, and Jill. The trio becomes fearful and makes their way to a store to free themselves from the uncomfortable situation.
This tension reoccurs throughout the film. As much as Chopra accomplishes to capture teenage girlhood in this blissful, romanticized lens, she never shies away from the harrowing realities. Smooth Talk’s release was in 1985 and yet in the year 2024, these are still some of the scary realities that young women and teenage girls still face when walking out of the door.
Watching the film through the eyes of an adult who has had some colorful life experiences, it is easy to point out the warning signs and the dangers of situations these girls find themselves in. In any scene where a man shows up on screen, there is a twist in the pit of your gut, just knowing that these men are looking at the young girls as playthings versus what they are, young girls who have not lived much life. You feel the danger of the situation but being so young Connie and her best friends see nothing more than an adventure to be had. It is an experience they can harbor away and retell when they are in one’s bedroom gossiping and giggling.
There is one universal understanding throughout Smooth Talk, which is the desire to be seen and desired. The need to feel seen at any cost is an all-encompassing feeling. At the age of fifteen, it could feel like life or death to get an ounce of attention no matter how dangerous the source of it may be. Dern’s performance as Connie is nothing short of star-making. Early on her career would be filled with performances that would leave you in awe. Dern’s performance in Smooth Talk knocks the complete wind out of your lungs. Not only do you see Connie for all the beauty and her flaws but she is someone who you can see glimpses of yourself in. There is a kinship of wanting to scream at Connie, shake her, and tell her that she isn’t safe. She dances the line of danger constantly and yet you understand why. She is a teenage girl who doesn’t want to fall into the cracks of oblivion, she wants to be noticed and loved.
Connie’s interactions with the opposite though provide her with attention that are uncomfortable and robotic. At the local hangout, Frank’s, Connie meets a boy (William Ragsdale), who drives her to a spot overlooking the city to make out. For Connie, it’s peak romance. Even though the scene isn’t what most would consider romantic or beautiful, Connie compliments his choice of location. What plays out with the boy and Connie is a typical teenage milestone and an experience Connie can compare her next moment with.
When she returns to Frank’s a night or so later, she meets Eddie (David Berridge). Eddie woos her into going with him and she soon finds herself in the most unromantic setting, a parking lot. Filled with the desire for attention and romance, Connie almost follows the motions of “what she should be doing” and not feeling a genuine feeling. Her smitten feelings for Eddie is performative. When she is with Eddie the protective glass that she has been in for most of the film begins to crack. She sees things for what they are, even pushing Eddie away when he wants to take his actions a step further, a step Connie is in no way ready for.
In a moment of honesty, Connie says, “I wish I could just travel somewhere.” It is a line that echoes teenage desperation. It’s the desire to run away, start over, and become someone you’re not in that moment. It is a moment where Connie begins to not like the person she is.
The protective glass completely shatters when Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) arrives at her doorstep. Arnold has been looming in the shadows since spotting Connie at Frank’s that first night. He is a much older man who takes a fondness for Connie from afar mostly. Before we are formally introduced to him later in the film, he grabs Connie’s attention and says, “I’m watching you.” Its ominous delivery leaves a lot to speculate as the film continues. You wonder when and where he will show up again. He is the tension you feel in your neck when you begin to feel unsafe or watched. It’s the most chilling moment of Smooth Talk.
Her dreamy expectations of love collide with the harrowing realities that she has been able to ignore for most of the film. Both Williams and Dern impressively go toe to toe with each other in some of the final moments of Smooth Talk. The short story in which Smooth Talk is loosely based (Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates), leaves its ending ambiguous to its readers. Chopra leaves room for some ambiguity however, with the themes that are presented throughout the film, there is a level of confidence we know what happened to Connie when she rides off with Arnold.
By the end, unfortunately, Connie sees the world through a clearer lens. Smooth Talk could be seen as a cautionary tale however it is as much of a tight embrace to teenage girls who need just that. It is a listening ear to girls who feel lost in the world. It is a film that allows those voices to be seen.
Smooth Talk is less ahead of its time as it is more of a timeless film. Chopra shows a deep compassion for teenage girlhood and explores the realities of blossoming female sexuality. It never calls out the teen girls for being “teenage monsters” in fact it does the opposite. It shows empathy for their mistakes and never exploits their naivety. It depicts how a young woman’s blossoming sexuality is both exploited and chastised by the world. It is a difficult film to talk about and also watch due to the realistic nature of the film, yet is one that I constantly go back to and think about often.
