MOVIE: Valley Girl

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman, EG Daily, Michelle Meyrink, Heidi Holicker, Tina Theberge, Lee Purcell, Michael Bowen, Cameron Dye

RELEASE DATE: April 29th, 1983

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Vudu)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

It’s time for another edition of “classic" Nic Cage films that I have never seen”.

This week’s film is Valley Girl. I’m open to all kinds of films. I do find myself more geared towards horror/action/comedy-style films. There are very few instances where I find myself into romance, especially romantic comedies. From earlier entries, I did find myself enjoying Moonstruck and Honeymoon In Vegas but also hating Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Where will this film fall?

This is another 80’s troped film that follows preppy San Fernando Valley girl Julie (played by Deborah Foreman) as she falls in love for edgy Hollywood punk named Randy (played by Cage). However, she finds herself conflicted, trying to choose if she wants to be with someone who goes against everything she grew up to understand. It’s her pink-clad rich family and friends vs the punk rock street lifestyle. Which will she choose?

I try to go into all films with an open mind. I can usually find myself pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, this film fell into the latter collection of “meh” to “bad” films. I’ll start with the positives. I like the comparisons between the sleek, pink, classy style of the higher class/popular kids versus the darker, dirtier, grit of the punk world. I also really enjoyed the music.

Beyond that, this film feels like they had enough of a script for a short story-style film, but had to pad it out to give it an hour and a half runtime. It could easily be my impatience with the film's usage of pacing, and I do understand that this film was made in the early 80s, but there is so much dead air in this film. People have conversations that have nothing to do with anything, that you only catch bits, long shots of footage of the street of Hollywood, and the majority of this film felt like it took place in one house for one party scene. 

The acting in this film is very hollow as well. Not even crazy Cage could save it. The majority of the time he is on screen, he looks bored. I want to believe that was the choice of portraying Randy, but it didn’t feel genuine. The other actors appeared like they were just going through the motions to keep the film moving. There is also a really confusing element about a secondary character that pursues the interest of the mother of the girl that is into him. To add to the awkwardness, the guy and the daughter end up together anyway without any real build.

In summary, overall film felt drawn out and the acting was very bland in general. This film ends up on closer to “Terrible” than “Ok” on the Nic Gauge.