Mania Grade: B-
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- Movie: Jennifer's Body
- Rating: R
- Running Time: 1 hrs. 42 min.
- Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, Kyle Gallner, Amy Sedaris and J.K. Simmons
- Written By: Diablo Cody
- Directed By: Karyn Kusama
- Distributor: 20th Century Fox
- Series:
JENNIFER'S BODY Review
One For The Ladies By
Rob Vaux
September 17, 2009
Megan Fox stars in Jennifer's Body(2009).
© 20th Century Fox/Bob Trate
I walked into Jennifer's Body expecting a real turd, and I suspect that makes a lot of difference. It's the sort of film that dashes high expectations and rewards low ones. A September release date (i.e., bad) clashes fiercely with the notion of Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody sinking her teeth into a satirical feminist horror film (i.e., good). Pick the optimistic side of that equation, and Jennifer's Body can't help but let you down. View the glass as half-empty, and the final results become a lot more enjoyable.
Director Karyn Kusama rebounds modestly well from her dreadful Aeon Flux adaptation, mainly by keeping the subtext of Jennifer's Body firmly in her crosshairs. She uses the horror tropes to send up high school life, and more specifically the way teenage girls interact with each other. Two of them form the crux of the story: ostensible best friends whose relationship disguises a complex power dynamic. Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the pretty one, a vain and shallow princess who uses her looks to manipulate those around her into doing what she wants. The ironically named Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is plainer but much more together, with a better sense of how the world really works and a nice-guy boyfriend (Johnny Simmons) who supports her unwaveringly. She sticks with Jennifer because it's always been that way, unaware of how readily her BFF exploits her.
And that's all before the whole demonic possession things kicks in. Jennifer drags Needy out to a honky-tonk bar one night to listen to an up-and-coming band named Low Shoulder. They apparently require infernal help to get where they're going, so after setting the bar ablaze they abduct Jennifer and take her out to the woods for the old pentagram-and-candlesticks routine. It doesn't go quite as planned. Jennifer returns with a voracious appetite for human flesh and only Needy--who was with her at the bar and smart enough to pick up on Low Shoulder's little reindeer games--suspects the truth.
Structure and execution remain the film's biggest problem, as Jennifer must periodically cannibalize various boy toys in order to maintain her gorgeous looks and Needy tries to come up with some way of stopping her. Too often, Jennifer's Body resorts to clunky exposition, awkward development, and sequences that should play out far better than they do. The rules surrounding Jennifer's condition smack of convenience, conjured up to solve a particular narrative problem and delivered in as expedient a manner as possible. The film's coda, in particular, displays little dramatic cohesion despite the apt way it wraps up the preceding 90 minutes. Significant plot holes linger uncomfortably in the air (like why the guys who did this to her aren't first on Jennifer's hit list), and Kusama shows little interest in keeping those threads comfortably contained.
The film works somewhat better as stimulus response horror. Jennifer's various bits of stalkery have a fine creepy air to them, and the moments where her delicate jaw morphs into serrated teeth hold their share of knee-jerk shocks. (And just for the record, Fox never appears nude, but she comes pretty close at times. Plus she disembowels a bunch of guys and laps up their innards with her tongue… if, you know, that's your thing.)
The real saving grace of Jennifer's Body comes in the way its two principles play off against each other. A whiff of Heathers hangs in the air as a smart, plucky everygirl struggles to handle the machinations of her supposed social superior. Jennifer was pretty awful to begin with, and demonic possession makes her only marginally worse, a fact which Needy slowly comes to realize as the film progresses. While the notion doesn't stand amid the annals of satiric immortality, it still packs a solid punch, augmented by Cody's tart dialogue and a solid performance from Seyfried.
For some, that still might not add up to a satisfying experience. Jennifer's Body has its share of problems, and in the final equation, it makes for neither great horror nor great comedy. But it has some interesting things to say while presenting a woman's perspective in a genre traditionally dominated by misogynistic stereotypes. That plants it firmly in the category of "pleasant surprise," an unexpected gift that--like all such gifts--should be enjoyed without suffering from undue scrutiny.
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So "Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the pretty one, a vain and shallow princess who uses her looks to manipulate those around her into doing what she wants." In other words no acting required from Fox
I'm disappointed that you feel it deserves a B- I was really hoping the movie would blow. Yeah, it's my irrational dislike of Megan Fox, I don't want anything that she "stars" in to be a success so she can slowly disappear from our midst
Well at least it's sitting at only 33% on rottentomatoes
I'm leaning towards The Informant for the weekend. I'll catch JB as long as I don't have to pay for it