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creneecalhoun
Reviews
Surviving (1985)
shocking, heartbreaking, and a little too melodramatic
When watching 80s films that I've never really heard of before, like this one, I always try to keep an open mind, and respect the movie without associating it with similar movies of the same genre. I applied this moral while watch "Surviving" and I must say I was still left pretty disappointed.
So basically, the film is about this girl named Lonnie (Ringwald), who previously attempting suicide, and how she meets and falls for Rick (Galligan), who is the genius son of her parents close friends. Rick and Lonnie's home-lives are both a wreck, hidden behind the smiles of their parents. This eventually leads them to becoming distant and troubled, and because of this, their parents force them to breakup, however unable to coop with being apart, they commit suicide together, leaving their families to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.
So yeah, the plot is actually pretty ligament, however the way it was executed is what causes problems. Although Ringwald's performances are normally always pretty genuine and heartfelt, this one wasn't very strong. Her character was rarely lovable, and at times was pretty annoying. She rarely could pass as someone with actual mental illness, but more so just a dramatic, annoying, spoiled kid. This may have been because the dialogue was weak, but I still think she could have done better. Gilligan's performance was also weak. His character was pretty hard to do, I'll give him that. In the movie, Rick gradually gets mentally ill, meaning it has to progress in severity, and I don't think that Gilligan did that too well. I was sort of just like one minute he's totally fine, and the next he's beating people up for absolutely no reason. Like I said, perhaps it was just the writing or the difficulty of the character, but I still expect a little better. The parents in this movie were really good, but the overall best character was River Pheonix's. He did a really good job, and was overall the best actor in the whole film.
Aside from character development and portrayal, the only other real problem was melodramatics. There were several scenes throughout the films that didn't really build properly, and left you feeling like nothing really had happened. The dialogue is also bland at times, but other than that the film is pretty good. There's a lot of powerful, sad, and heartbreaking moments throughout. Perhaps too many, which could be the cause for melodramatics. The movie hits its peak moments after the lovers die, because then it just focuses more on the families older members, and of course River Pheonix.
So, I know this review is kind of bad and overly negative, but to be honest I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoyed 80s dramas, and was able to tolerate an incredibly large number of emotional scenes.