Teen suicide: a subject torn from the front page of the daily paper, or else from a followup story on the front page of its Lifestyles section -- not a very reliable prescription for a work of fiction, but one guaranteed to win scattered applause from people who care nothing for fiction but who otherwise know what's important (i.e., who read the front page of the paper). It's all very understated -- even, when giving the characters their own say in the matter, fumblingly inarticulate. And the reasons for the suicide, accordingly, are not deeply gone into: any torn-from-the-front-page sort of story, afraid to dispel the Problem if it presents an Answer, is not really interested in the details below the headline. But the dramatic framework around the suicide, skimpy though it is, does afford a tidy analysis of the teenage position in society: the predicament of people forced to do Gilbert and Sullivan when they'd rather be drinking beer and making horrible music of their own. The climactic opening-night performance of "HMS Pinafore", neither too good a performance nor too bad a one, is as understated as the rest of the movie, although the intrusion of guerrilla theater into the midst of it explodes the believableness the movie has worked so hard to maintain, and does a lot of damage to the viewer's good will into the bargain. Keanu Reeves, Alan Boyce, Jennifer Rubin, Michelle Meyrink, Richard Bradford; directed by Marisa Silver. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd
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