That Night

Alice (Eliza Dushku) is a 10-year old struggling to figure out romance and how to fit in with other kids. Or at least stop being the one they all pick on. With no other useful people around to help, she fixates on her neighbor across the street, 17-year old Sheryl (Juliette Lewis), trying to imitate the older girl and imagining they're friends. Eventually they do actually talk, and strike up a friendship, especially as Alice tries to help Sheryl maintain her relationship with Rick (C. Thomas Howell), who gets derided as a greaser by all the adults in Alice and Sheryl's suburb.

The movie was released in 1992, and there's times it feels very much of its era, especially right at the end when Alice's voiceover explains what she's learned as the end credits music hits. It's also set in 1961, so I always wonder how accurate a picture of the era it is, or whether it's just playing up conflicts for the sake of its narrative. At one point, Rick arrives at Sheryl's home wanting to speak with her (her mother has sent her elsewhere for reasons I won't spoil but you might guess). Rick and his friends won't leave her lawn, so all the neighborhood dads, led by Alice's father, rush over and start a fight, culminating in Rick getting clocked with a shovel. I tend to think of suburban dads as being too much a bunch of weenies for any action beyond passive-agressive looks, or maybe calling the police. Maybe it was different in the '60s.

But parts of it are done very well. Sheryl's conflict late in the movie about who to risk losing builds off losses from earlier in the film. The family situations she, Rick, and Alice have contrast nicely. Alice is not portrayed as one of those movie kids who is way too smart for their age. She does outsmart them, but it's a combination of her being determined, and her parents just underestimating her. They just sort of assume they've told her not to do something, so she won't do it. But her willingness to push back against her parents when they speak ill of Rick and Sheryl felt realistic, as well as how she sees the young lovers as what love is "supposed" to be like, in contrast to her parents, who barely seem to like each other, and have few answers for her questions.

The story is told from Alice's perspective, which makes some of the shots of Sheryl as Alice watches her from across the street kind of odd. It's meant to be Alice seeing Sheryl as this idealized version of what she should try to be, but it comes off as very male gaze when Sheryl's dancing in her room in her bra. I was thinking if they remade the movie today, Alice would probably turn out to be gay, but not really aware of that. She'd be attracted to Sheryl, but not get that, and think it was something else. Especially in the 1960s, when I don't imagine many parents were talking to their kids about homosexuality. Alice's parents get scandalized just finding out the other kids tried to make Alice ask Sheryl about "doing it".