River’s Edge and the troubling psychosis of ’80s… | Little White Lies

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River’s Edge and the trou­bling psy­chosis of 80s youth

20 Jun 2017

Group of young people in casual 1970s fashion, standing in front of a metal fence.
Group of young people in casual 1970s fashion, standing in front of a metal fence.
This Keanu Reeves-star­ring dra­ma is a poignant tale of teenage apathy.

In 1981, an oth­er­wise qui­et town out­side of San Jose, CA became the epi­cen­tre of a media fren­zy and an atten­dant moral pan­ic. A high school boy had mur­dered his girl­friend and left her life­less body where it fell. The homi­cide then went unre­port­ed for two days while he invit­ed his friends to come and gawk at the girl’s corpse. Com­men­ta­tors imme­di­ate­ly seized upon the case as a sym­bol of a whole generation’s cal­lous amorality.

When a film loose­ly based on those events, River’s Edge, was released in the sum­mer of 1987, it was des­tined to become the most dis­af­fect­ed of 80s teen movies. Keanu Reeves stars in his first major role as a baby-faced ston­er. His wild lit­tle broth­er is among the first to dis­cov­er the body, but soon the whole slack­er clique is involved. They’re seem­ing­ly unwill­ing to report the per­pe­tra­tor Sam­son (Daniel Roe­buck), espe­cial­ly speed freak Layne (a twitchy Crispin Glover, don­ning a leather get-up rem­i­nis­cent of the ghosts of delin­quents past). The teens gath­er around to regard the nude body of their mutu­al friend with cold fas­ci­na­tion, but lit­tle actu­al feeling.

Tim Hunter’s vision is of an Amer­i­can night­mare, where teens like Layne cheer­ful­ly endorse mur­der and uphold a bizarre code of loy­al­ty to one anoth­er. Mean­while, a local drug deal­er named Feck (Den­nis Hop­per at his para­noid best) is the only adult that the kids seem to feel com­fort­able con­fid­ing in. Even more trou­bling is Feck’s insis­tence that he’s hid­ing out after mur­der­ing his own girl­friend. At best, the par­ents of these way­ward teenagers bare­ly seem able to cling to the sem­blance of con­trol. At worst, their fam­i­ly dys­func­tion is endem­ic and impos­si­ble to rec­ti­fy – mak­ing the sort of par­ent-child dis­rup­tion of John Hugh­es’ films seem pos­i­tive­ly cosy.

Claris­sa (Ione Skye) and Matt (Reeves) final­ly decide to go to the local cops – and even that seems more like an emp­ty ges­ture of moral right­eous­ness than a gen­uine impulse. So begins a noc­tur­nal odyssey across the over­grown envi­rons of the neigh­bour­hood, which has a down-and-out Rust Belt feel and an air of unpre­dictable, build­ing violence.

The self-absorp­tion of the teenagers in the film is evi­dent when a TV news anchor comes to school to report on the shock­ing events. The response is preen­ing and self-aggran­dis­e­ment, faux-emo­tion and pre­tend moral judge­ment. The kids of River’s Edge are lack­ing some­thing, though it’s nev­er entire­ly clear what that thing is – warmth and guid­ance, a moral com­pass, or sim­ply the direc­tion of a decent upbring­ing. The film may be a touch moral­is­tic, but giv­en John Hugh­es’ par­al­lel vision of ado­les­cence – one that’s aspi­ra­tional and ide­al­is­tic – River’s Edge is also strik­ing­ly unhinged. Crispin Glover bul­lies a child and Den­nis Hop­per waltzes with a blow-up doll. That bizarre, nihilis­tic flavour tran­scends what­ev­er cau­tion­ary impuls­es the film has. Where Hugh­es offers hope­ful roman­ti­cism, Hunter reveals only dead ends.

Feck, the Hop­per char­ac­ter, serves as a kind of twist­ed sur­ro­gate par­ent. In a hand­ful of films of the 80s, the actor came to be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of age­ing 60s hip­piedom, mired in psy­chosis and vice. As such, his burnt-out flower child per­sona seems like a let-down to Rea­gan-era teens, who are lost in the fad­ing wake of a mean­ing­ful sub­cul­ture. After the rise of the so-called New Right’ of the late 70s, large parts of rad­i­cal youth cul­ture had been sub­sumed into the main­stream. The coun­ter­cul­ture was in its death throes, and even the punk move­ment had fad­ed into incoherence.

With lit­tle to dis­tract or gird them from the cru­el­ty and hope­less­ness of the adult world, teens form their own trib­al affil­i­a­tions. Numb to the hip­pies’ call for peace or punk’s ethos of rage, the kids of River’s Edge have been left to their own devices. When Feck, the only adult, pulls the trig­ger, it’s a clear reminder of some­thing. If the youth of the nation is moral­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly bank­rupt, then they only learned it from their parents.

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