The Crush (1993)

Seems strange to review the first film of Alicia, decades after it was released, and now that Alicia is a senior actress of sorts. This film is perhaps the nth of its kind... fatal attraction for a person and its associated problems. Wonky lips Alicia impresses in her debut movie. But the film, in itself, is full of gaps and plot holes. Deserted rooms full of burning candles.. wow. No doubt that Adrienne lit them.. but what about the fire hazard, in a building with wooden walls and floors? And how did the candles remain lit? Surely they would exhaust after sometime? The girlfriend, Amy, gets stung by a bunch of bees, suffocates and almost dies. Adrienne's mischief once again. But the hero kind of forgets to visit her in the hospital. Amy reappears at the end, looking as fit and fine as she was.. no change in her appearance. Good. Should I reveal more plot holes? OK... Adrienne's friend, Cheyenne, is about to be killed, tied to a carousel. Our hero is hell bent on rescuing her. But when she is finally discovered, our hero is more concerned about the welfare of the troublemaker, Adrienne.. poor Cheyenne remains tied. I am not sure how she was rescued at the end.Hmmm.. now I am bored. So let the next viewer report more plot holes. It is a pity that no movie has ever been made on Daisy Duck. Alicia, without any prosthetic makeup, would have been a dead ringer for the role. With perhaps Chris Sarandon as Donald. But forget all that and enjoy Alicia's pout in this debut film. Its her film all the way.

***SPOILERS*** Magazine writer Nick Eliot, Cary Elwer, should have know better in what he was up against as soon as he almost ran down with his car the hot to trot, for older men, Adrian Forrester, Alicia Silverstone, as he was searching for an affordable apartment in the big city: Vancouver BC.It's when Adrian saw the shy and quite as well as cute Nick she started to get ideas about getting him into the shack together with her. Nick didn't help himself from getting Adrian out of his hair and him into her fantasy world by renting an apartment from her parents Cliff & Liv Forrester, Kurtwood Smith & Gwynwth Walsh, that he thought would give him all the peace & quite that he needed to do his work. What in fact Nick got was a hell on earth with the oversexed Adrian turning his life upside down as well as anyone else she thought was getting in the way of her attempted planned and calculated seduction of Nick! Which included his co-worker at the trendy Pique Magazine that he worked for photographer Amy Maddik, Jennifer Rubin.You just couldn't help feeling for the poor guy in how far Adrian would go to get him sexually involved with her. Knowing that it's not right as well as sinful for him to have anything to do with the very sexually aggressive Adrian, Nick was 28 and she 14, he still gave into her advances by taking Adrian out late at night to a local lovers lane and planting a harmless kiss on her cheek. This started her engine going in Adrian going all he way to get Nick to become her secret lover or if not destroy is life which in fact, up until the last few minutes of the movie, she did!It was in fact Adrian's girlfriend Cheyenne, Amber Benson, who tried to warn Nick to stay away from her in what she did the year before to a camp counselor whom she forced, by exposing herself to him, to get involved with her at summer camp. This not only cost the guy his job but reputation, in him being left alone with young girls, by being declared a sexual predator by the court! Now Adrian is working on Nick to get him to either go to bed with her or make it, which she later did, as if he forced himself on her and viciously raped her!***SPOILERS*** There was a bittersweet ending to this whole sleazy affair, on Adrian's part, with her being exposed for what she was only after she almost ended up killing the entire cast, including her dad, in the movie. A by now an all that he can take Nick finally put an end to Adrian's reign of terror, on older men, by taking her out not on a date but with a solid straight left to the jaw before she could do any more damage!In the end Adrian is put into a mental institution for the juvenile criminally insane where instead of her getting cured from her fixation on getting it on, sexually, with older men was only intensified by her secretly planning to get it on with her court appointed kind and understanding psychiatrist Dr. Pollard, Andrew Airlie!

What could be more attractive than a movie about a super sexy blonde babe who was the sex fantasy of thousands blackmailing a mature man? Well "The Crush" is not all about an obsessive teenager; it deals with the problems of a sexy teenager and how family is always necessary in order to define a teens' personality.But the lesson in this movie is that obsessions can be deadly, dangerous, and even sexy.Alicia Silverstone carries the movie entirely on her back showing sexy lingerie, bikinis, skimpy mini skirts, and even dirty dialog.She's the main attractive of the movie and face it, without her, the movie would suck even more.Overall this is a decent early 90's Thriller.

Seduction (or so) by the assumed lesser: of course, this issue's many aspects deserve as well serious as dramatic picturization. This movie is none of both.Alicia Silverstone appears well-casted. The not really smart but defiant, cunning and tricky character seems to fit her. Perhaps her exterior helps her plausibility, especially those remains of baby fat - on her up-curled upper lip baring rosy gums above those tiny upper teeth, on her unstructured overhands above unshaped child fingers, or on her rounded baby feet. Sure, the physical exterior itself carries no personality traits, but how penetratingly she leverages her frailties for seductive aims is working beyond attractiveness norms and below the boundaries of the subconscious - if only a properly naive target mammal insists on stumbling in front of her cross-hair. For her alleged intention is most lumpishly obvious.The bothersome boring effect this exaggerated performance has on me does not yet mean this can never happen. But it raises the question if our still male dominated society needs such embarrassing poor male chauvinist excusing screen operas showing us how perfidious Lolitas lurk out there in that frightening real life. To be serious, if such a rare constellation really occurs (independent of the gender configuration), than the much more interesting aspects are (a) in which way the younger person, no matter how much in formal control of what's going on, is (even unconsciously) over-strained both mentally and emotionally, and (b) what on earth (except the fluke to receive a seemingly willing, even demandingly self-offering victim) lets the elder person be taken by such an ostensible play.In this sense, Cary Elwes to some extent may be seen as likewise well-casted. His enormous lack of mimic expression fits Nick's naive, or rather excruciatingly stupid character quite well. His eyes tell he sort of expects permanent proof for his self-confidence, yet almost everything he experiences turns out so overwhelmingly unbelievable that he can't even decide if it's frightening, exciting, or just terribly puzzling. Anyway, as this happens frequently, his inner will to survive prevents him from being scared to death by learning to get a kick out of it. The result is visible: even when the exerted brows above his permanently bewildered eyes try to prevent anger, the corners of his mouth undecidedly oscillate between fear and a childishly lustful sort of joy. In fact, what we see rather appears to be how Mr. Elwes on each single day of the shooting again experiences the sensation of really having found his way onto a movie set. It can be seen often in unexperienced supernumeraries' faces: the amazement that at the most allows attempts of ... playing to play.But how come Nick is introduced as skilled investigative journalist? Who only moments later is told by a 14 yo girl how easily informations this Mr. Pulitzer Jr. regards totally out of his reach can be obtained? These two alleged parts of one personality hardly apply - except to the dissonant concept of excusing a human mammal's misbehavior as consequences of allegedly having fallen prey to the wicked skills of one of those myriads of killer Lolita monsters out there. Boo.