Film Friday: Better Off Dead (1985)

With the holiday season upon us, it’s time to talk about one of my favorite movies that takes place during the holidays: Better Off Dead. Written and directed by Savage Steve Holland and staring John Cusack, Better Off Dead is a teen comedy kind of like those put out by John Hughes... only very different. And to me, this is one of the funniest movies you will ever see.

Here’s the story: high-schooler Lane Myer (John Cusack) is in love with his girlfriend Beth. Beth, however, doesn’t love Lane, and she dumps Lane for Roy, the captain of the school’s ski team. This causes Lane to become suicidal. Fortunately for him, his half-hearted attempts to kill himself fail. Soon enough, he meets the foreign exchange student who is staying with his neighbors. They fall in love. And when Roy insults Lane’s new girlfriend, Lane decides to defend her honor with a ski race. Sounds like a Hallmark film, doesn’t it? Yeah, it’s not.

See, what John Hughes did so brilliantly in his films like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club was that he identified the things that cause teenage angst and he told the audience that everyone feels this stuff, even the kids who otherwise seem to have such perfect lives. This was reassuring. It made kids feel less alone and less freakish. He also told them that everything would be all right eventually. These messages resonated.

Steven Holland’s approach was a tad bit different. Like Hughes, Holland isolated the things that cause teenage angst: getting dumped, having uncool parents, competing with a sibling, being shown up in competitions, getting bullied, and generally feeling inferior. Unlike Hughes, however, Holland did not reassure us. No. To the contrary, Holland amplified the hell out of everything... to the point of unreality. Indeed, let’s go through the plot again and you might see what I mean.

High-schooler Lane Myer is in love with his girlfriend Beth. Only, it’s not love... it’s obsession. Lane is obsessed with Beth to the point that he has hundreds of photos of her around his house. Then she dumps him. And this isn’t a John Hughes dump where the deed happens in a brief-but-respectful scene and then the main characters finds solace with their friends. No. This is a never-ending horrific dump. First, she dumps Lane for the captain of the school’s ski team, Roy Stalin. Stalin is a bully who will periodically show up at the worst possible moments to add to Lane’s humiliation. If there is a moment that Lane will end up covered in garbage or falling on his butt or getting fired, Roy and Beth will happen by and Roy will mock him.

Further, once she dumps Lane, everything will remind Lane of this fact, like the radio playing a continuous loop of breakup songs on every channel. Moreover, as Lane moves throughout his day, his teacher will actually ask Lane if Beth is available... as does Barney Rubble of all people.

Because of this, Lane becomes suicidal and he sets out to kill himself. Fortunately for him, he proves to be utterly incompetent at this, as he is in every other aspect of his life, and we see him try various things only to have them fail. Interestingly, whereas Hughes would choose this moment to have someone from the main character’s life come assure them that everything would be all right, Holland goes the other way: each of Lane’s friends and family either ignore his attempts or actively encourage them.

Family is another area of angst for teens. Specifically, you see a lot of teen films about competing with a superior sibling or teens who struggle with having uncool parents who don’t understand them. Holland gives us this in spades. For example, Lane’s little brother can build a spaceship and pick up trashy women. Lane’s mother does insane things (note what she’s cooking in the image below). And Lane’s father sets Lane up with the most hilarious blind date. Again, each character is so far over the top that they become ridiculous.

A lot of teenage angst also comes from a feeling that the teen can’t compete with those around them. Better Off Dead really excels here. Lane is constantly made a fool by two Vietnamese brothers who learned to speak English by watching Howard Cosell and who keep challenging him to races. When Lane finally stands up to Stalin, he hopes to keep the issue quiet. Instead, it gets announced over the school loudspeaker. And how does he stand up to Stalin? By challenging him to a race down the K-12, a ski slope that we are told will kill even professional skiers. Whoops.

The whole film is like this. Everything that happens in Lane’s life is exaggerated. Whereas John Hughes tried to downplay people’s angst and make people realize that it wasn’t as big of a deal as they thought, Lane lives in a world where his insecurities are in fact huge threats to his very existence... bizarre unrealistic threats, which make you laugh. This makes for a strong film which forces you to laugh.

Moreover, the film is packed with memorable characters. His best friend Charles de Mar (Curtis Armstrong) is a drug addict and a freak, who wonders about the street value of all the “snow” on the mountain. His neighbor Ricky is... well, God knows, and Ricky’s mom is the nightmare over-protective mother who has raised an adult infant. Lane’s boss is a vile caricature and humiliates him. The paperboy stalks Lane for $2 (something I can sympathize with being an former paperboy). Each of these characters is strong enough that you could see them as the standalone “interesting character” in a modern film, but here they are all assembled in this one story and they work because Lane’s world is just unreal enough that these people can inhabit it.

This much alone would make Better Off Dead an excellent film, but Savage adds a very strong romance to the film too. In the middle of all of this, Lane meets Monique, the foreign exchange student. She had been brought to the US from France by Ricky’s mother and apparently was brought over as girlfriend material for Ricky. She’s held a virtual prisoner in Ricky’s house and she pretends she can’t speak English so she doesn’t have to talk to them. She sees Lane’s attempts to kill himself and she takes an interest in him. Little by little she decides to build his confidence by helping him overcome his insecurities by challenging each of them head-on. Eventually, she will awaken within him his lost confidence and he will beat Roy on the slopes and then defeat Ricky in a sort of swordfight for Monique.

This is a really effective love story because it goes beyond two characters doing the love at first sight thing. Instead, these two are friends who grow to love each other as they realize that they make each other better people. In effect, they are perfect for each other.

All of this adds up very nicely. The romance is strong and heartwarming. The problems Lane runs into are hilarious. The supporting characters are unique and fascinating to watch. The dialog is perfect and very quotable:

“Two dollars!” “A car is not a toy!” “Sorry your mom blew up, Ricky.” “He keeps putting his testicles all over me.” “Do you mind if I take out Beth?” “This... was your assignment.” “What’s a little boy like you doing with big boy smut like this?” “Everyone will be wearing them.” “You like raisins.” “Didn't ask for a dime.”

The acting is understated for a teen movie, but sells the movie perfectly. Moreover, Holland was smart enough to make the world just unreal enough to be truly funny, but grounded enough to keep us from seeing this film as a parody, and he did that by telling us that we are basically seeing the world through the exaggerated, blown-out-of-proportion world of an angst-ridden teenager.

This is why this film works so wonderfully. And if you’ve never seen this one, then I absolutely recommend that you do. This one is brilliantly funny in a way you just don’t often see and haven’t seen in a long time.