St. Elmo’s Fire is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen
Which makes me so incredibly sad because I was really looking forward to watching it. Being in That Stage of Life (Post-College, Pre-Real World), I was hoping it would be a perfectly angsty, 80’s-tastic movie that captures all of the mixed emotions of, to quote Ms. Spears, being “not a girl, not yet a woman.”
And instead it’s hopelessly melodramatic and contrived and makes so little sense. I hated every single one of the characters except for the Andrew McCarthy/Ally Sheedy/Judd Nelson love triangle. Emilio Estevez is a totally creepy stalker. Demi Moore is a vapid coke head with the worst suicide attempt known to man. And worst of all: Rob Lowe is possibly the most ridiculous and infuriating character to ever have existed ever. Please explain to me any of his characterization: graduating from Georgetown, getting married, repeatedly cheating on his wife (who also cheats on him—but yet they both still want to be together), losing too many jobs to count, and making out with Demi Moore, all while acting like a total douche to Mare Winningham and yet still taking her money to pay his rent? And then Mare Winningham ends the movie with such a lack of personal self-respect that after all of Rob Lowe’s tool-tastic behavior, she sleeps with him!
Ugh, so disappointed.
I’m happy with my teen coming-of-age films. Give me some Breakfast Club or Mean Girls and I’m golden. But dude, life, if possible, becomes less certain after high school.
People, tell me: is there a post-college coming-of-age movie that doesn’t suck?
(I would like to give an honorary shout-out to Post Grad with Alexis Bledel and Zach Gilford, which also had a lot of problems, but still came across as a charming encapsulation of this slice of life that didn’t make me want to rip out my eyeballs.)
?
