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The basis is Tanner's Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, efficiently pasteurized for the Reaganite Eighties. Counterculture eulogy, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on a church organ, the hymn of choice for the late campus firebrand. Weekend reunion for his Michigan U. colleagues, held at the South Carolina summer home by the sports-shoe impresario (Kevin Kline). "We put on a great funeral here." The wife (Glenn Close), the psychologist who went to Vietnam (William Hurt), the aspiring writer (JoBeth Williams), the humble television star (Tom Berenger), the attorney with a ticking biological clock (Mary Kay Place) and the sardonic People columnist (Jeff Goldblum), ruminating, toking, shtupping. Observing them is the girlfriend of the departed (Meg Tilly), young and unclouded. "I don't like talking about my past as much as you guys do." Lawrence Kasdan's Boomer roundelay, slick, smug, irritatingly minor-key—in other words, the perfect dramedy for absolving any budding yuppies from guilt over selling out their ideals. The Sixties as something of a youthful indiscretion to be outgrown, political activism like a pair of bell-bottoms to be discarded. "I don't know. I'd hate to think it was all just... fashion." Crying jags, impromptu boogieing, video confessions, smooth sitcom timing for one and all. Embodying suburban resignation, the insomniac husband (Don Galloway) momentarily pricks the nostalgia bubble: "The thing is... nobody said it was going to be fun." The soundtrack works overtime to lubricate the visual Muzak: "Joy to the World" out of the mouths of babes, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" for the radical's last drive, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" around the kitchen table, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" for the sanctimonious sperm donation. Hughes proceeds to spread the neoliberal margarine onto the next generation in The Breakfast Club. "Well, I guess there's a certain symmetry to that."
--- Fernando F. Croce |