The Crush (1993) Warner Bros./Thriller RT: 88 minutes Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity, suggestive content) Director: Alan Shapiro Screenplay: Alan Shapiro Music: Graeme Revell Cinematography: Bruce Surtees Release date: April 2, 1993 (US) Cast: Cary Elwes, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Rubin, Kurtwood Smith, Amber Benson, Gwynyth Walsh, Matthew Walker, Deborah Hancock, Beverley Elliott, Andrew Airlie, Sheila Paterson, Brent Chapman. Box Office: $13.6M (US)
Rating: ***
The teen thriller The Crush fits comfortably into a category I like to call “Trash Cinema”. A Fatal Attraction knock-off not dissimilar to the previous year’s Poison Ivy starring Drew Barrymore as a teen temptress, it’s driven by a plot that only works because the characters are complete idiots (aka The Idiot Plot). The protagonist Nick (Elwes, The Princess Bride) makes so many boneheaded moves when dealing with jailbait jezebel Adrian (Silverstone in a startling debut), it’s a wonder he can walk and chew gum at the same time. Here’s a tip, moron. Entering a house uninvited, snooping around a 14YO girl’s bedroom and hiding in her closet while she undresses are all bad ideas especially when you want to talk to her parents about her behavior. It makes you look like a pervert.
Nick, a 28YO journalist, rents the guest house on the property where Adrian spends her days roller skating, playing the piano and taking horse riding lessons. She has no friends her own age except for Cheyenne (Benson, TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and it’s only because their parents are friends. She’s a precocious, highly accomplished, super-intelligent sort who uses her intellectual gifts to manipulate and play mind games. Her parents Cliff (Smith, RoboCop) and Liv (Walsh, Blue Monkey) think she’s still an innocent little girl which is exactly what she wants them to think. Somehow her provocative behavior escapes their notice. Not very attentive, Mom and Dad! Adrian also has no notion of boundaries. She tries to ingratiate herself by breaking into Nick’s place and secretly rewriting an important article. To be fair, his writing skills leave something to be desired. She did him a favor making him look good to his tough to please editor (Walker, Little Women).
Adrian develops a dangerous fixation on Nick that he dismisses as a harmless crush even after she lures him to a secluded spot where she makes a pass at him. He makes it crystal clear they can only be friends and nothing more, but this girl doesn’t take no for an answer, not even when she meets his new girlfriend, photographer Amy (Rubin, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors). When Nick continues to rebuff Adrian’s advances, she retaliates by making his life a living hell even accusing him of rape when he tries to move out. This latter-day Lolita is totally bonkers!
Admittedly, I wasn’t that big a fan of The Crush when it first came out. I dismissed it as an inferior rip-off of Fatal Attraction and Poison Ivy that was saved only by Silverstone. Playing a character likely inspired by Amy Fisher (aka “The Long Island Lolita”), she embodies all the traits of a psychopath including the tendency towards violence when things don’t go her way. When it looks like Cheyenne might spill the beans to Nick, Adrian causes her to have an “accident” while riding. She preys on Amy’s fear of wasps by emptying a nest of the little buggers into her darkroom through a vent while she’s working. This is one volatile vixen. It’s a memorable first performance for Silverstone, partly for the sexuality of her underage character and partly for her occasional overacting like the scene of her furiously chopping up lemons after spying on Nick and Amy in bed.
Written and directed by Alan Shapiro (Flipper), the plot of The Crush is just okay. It’s pretty standard for the thriller genre. It’s predictable as hell too. I thought all this in ’93 and stand by it more than a quarter century later. Although I wish it had more nutso scenes, it’s fun to point out all the dumb things the characters do. Why would Nick think it’s okay to take an underage girl anywhere without her parents’ consent least of all a known make-out spot? Why would Cheyenne trust her unstable best friend to tack her horse for her? And the biggest blunder of all, why the hell doesn’t Nick move out immediately once he realizes his new “friend” is crazy? I would have been gone after the finger sucking incident at the make-out spot. Of course, if Nick had two brain cells to rub together, we wouldn’t have much of a movie.
As Nick, Elwes is okay. I like him even if he is a dope. Rubin is pretty good as an unusually understanding new girlfriend. How many girls would stick around after they get a load of Adrian and her disturbing behavior? The way the kid tries to provoke Amy is just wrong. It leads to one of the movies best lines when Amy exasperatedly says, “Adrian, go play!” There’s no shortage of daffy dialogue in The Crush. At the stable before a riding competition, Adrian asks Cheyenne if she’s going to tell her to “break a leg”, a query to which the injured girl mutters “Break ‘em both.”
Granted, The Crush isn’t the trashy delight of its kindred teen thriller Poison Ivy, but it’s pretty close. It has its moments though. One of the best scenes, one which seems to be a favorite of many, is a face punch that sends its victim flying across a room. I’ll only say it’s totally deserved which should tell you who’s at the receiving end. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the carousel in the attic. It’s just so random; you have to love it. No two ways about it, The Crush is trash, but it doesn’t stink. Hey, faint praise is still praise, no?
