Cast: Liza Weil, Chad Morgan, Kathryn Rossetter, Frederic Forrest, Gary Wolf, Dan Montano, John G
Connolly
Director: Susan Skoog
Producers: Susan Skoog, Kevin Segalla, Michelle Yahn
Screenplay: Susan Skoog
Cinematography: Michael F. Barrow, Michael Mayers
Music: Walter Salas-Humara
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Fundamentally, being a teenage girl in the early 1980s wasn't a whole lot different than being a teenage girl at any time, although every decade offers its own challenges. For Anna Stockard (Liza Weil), the protagonist of Susan Skoog's insightful coming-of-age drama, the issues are when to lose her virginity, how far to proceed along the road to rebellion before experimentation turns self- destructive, and whether she has the stamina and the strength to face the future and make something of her life. Just about everyone who has ever been a teenager, regardless of sex, gender, or age, will identify with Anna's plight, since, to one degree or another, we have all experienced it.
That's not to say that Anna represents some sort of personification of adolescence. Quite the contrary, in fact - she's a unique, powerfully portrayed individual (probably a stand-in for writer/director/producer Skoog, who, not coincidentally, went through high school in the early '80s). Whatever is a period piece set in the topsy-turvy years when disco and free sex were dying an ugly death under the thumb of the Reagan Revolution, and being a teenager meant choosing between indulging and just saying no.
Northern New Jersey, 1981 - a place that has become the outlet for all of the refuse from New York City. That's where Anna is spending her senior year of high school. She's an unremarkable student with mediocre grades, but her art teacher, Mr. Chaminsky (Frederic Forrest), sees a potential in her that she is unwilling to fully acknowledge, even though she dares to dream about attending a prestigious New York art school. Adolescence is Anna's biggest enemy, and the allure of drugs, tough guys, and sex keeps her from fulfilling Chaminsky's expectations. And it doesn't help that Anna's mother offers virtually no support.
Anna's best friend is Brenda (Chad Morgan), a slutty girl who relies on her beauty to get by in life. Brenda is a typical "wild child," and her influence is one of the reasons why Anna is always straying off the straight-and-narrow. It's largely because of Brenda, for example, that Anna takes the plunge with a guy, leading to her singularly unremarkable loss of virginity. The two girls' conversation afterwards is refreshingly frank - most movies aren't so open about sex.
Plaudits to Liza Weil, whose performance as Anna is memorable. Weil inhabits Anna's skin in such a way that we no longer think of her as an actress playing a part. Weil not only delivers dialogue believably, but uses her expressive features to great advantage. She is almost certainly destined to become a significant talent. Chad Morgan, while not quite on Weil's level, is nevertheless solid, and brings an element of desperation and poignancy to her role as the party girl. Veteran actor Frederic Forrest has a nice turn as the one man who believes in Anna.
Although it's only looking back through a window 18 years old, Skoog's picture reminds us how different fashions and attitudes were less than two decades ago. She has recreated the early '80s with meticulous detail, from the characters' wardrobe to the music they listen to. Those who lived through the early '80s will recognize that Whatever strikes the same kind of non-nostalgic chord that Ang Lee's '70s film, The Ice Storm, taps into. This is the way the '80s were, not necessarily the way we like to remember them.
Because it doesn't pull any punches in its exploration of Anna's lifestyle and choices, Whatever can be a difficult film to sit through. It is, at times, gritty, grim, and filled with adolescent despair. Call it the grunge version of Pretty in Pink or Say Anything. The characters and situations are vivid and believable, and Skoog pays the kind of attention to the fine points that only someone familiar with the reality of the era and the circumstances could. Whatever may not be entirely autobiographical, but Skoog has put at least a portion of her own life experience into the film. And that, coupled with Liza Weil's standout performance, make this debut feature a compelling motion picture.
© 1998 James Berardinelli