by Matthew Amuso. This is RETROGRADING, where fair is fair.
THE FILM: The Legend of Billie Jean
THE YEAR: 1985. The Eighties were a golden age of teen adventure movies, the decade of E.T., The Goonies, Karate Kid, and more. While some were canonized, others disappeared from pop culture with nary a trace.
THE SPECS: Directed by Matthew Robbins; written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner; produced by Rob Cohen; starring Helen Slater, Keith Gordon, Christian Slater, Peter Coyote, and Richard Bradford; distributed by TriStar Pictures. Rated PG-13.
THE MAKE: The Legend of Billie Jean skidded into theaters on a Honda Elite scooter in the summer of ’85, only to putter out a few weeks later. Few took notice, and those who did were not especially kind. Reviewing for The New York Times, Janet Maslin called it “bankrupt beyond belief.” David Edelstein of The Village Voice said it was a “cretinous bit of bubble-gum mythmaking.”
A story of young, accidental outlaws, the teen movie directed by Matthew Robbins investigated themes similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, a commercial and critical hit just two years prior, but failed to find similar success. The young audience it was meant to reach was watching Back to the Future a second or third time instead, or sneaking into Rambo: First Blood Part II — regardless, almost every other popcorn-scented fantasy lighting up screens that summer was bigger, brighter, and louder than Billie Jean. Additionally, in contrast to the wounded machismo of The Outsiders, Rosenthal’s film was resolutely feminist. Even a rad soundtrack featuring a hit single from Pat Benatar wasn’t enough to pique interest. After Supergirl failed to take flight just one year prior, perhaps moviegoers had decided Helen Slater wasn’t meant to be a star.
Most details about Billie Jean’s origins have been lost to time. Even the not-so-Special Edition DVD features zero extras beyond a single commentary track with Helen Slater and supporting actor Yeardley Smith (better known as the voice of Lisa Simpson). Slater alludes to an earlier script draft by the once-blacklisted Walter Bernstein, whose communist street cred fits the film’s rabble-rousing subject matter. However, the film only credits Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, and Rosenthal claims the original idea was his. (This may be the case; Rosenthal and Konner met at the University of Vermont, which certainly explains why Christian Slater’s character is obsessed with the Green Mountain State.)
According to Rosenthal, their story was loosely inspired by the life of Phoolan Devi, the “Bandit Queen” of India, whose life of crime and subsequent political career came about in response to her own caste-based repression and sexual assault. If Billie Jean was indeed the first screenplay they sold, as Rosenthal has said, it was an ambitious one. Despite this, he and Konner were fired off the project before the first round of studio notes hit, with Rosenthal insisting their script was “simplified and dumbed down, much of the character drama removed.”
Spurned by moviegoers and her creators alike, Billie Jean disappeared into the wasteland of afternoon cable TV. That’s where I first encountered it sometime in the early ’90s. The movie was just adult enough to feel dangerous: here were young people having a good time breaking the law and doing it for the best of reasons — to defend themselves from the evils of adults. I’d daydream about the film’s central chase scene, set in a mall, imagining myself as an elementary school Robin Hood, vaulting over escalator railings. Then, like most moviegoers did in 1985, I forgot about it for almost thirty years.
THE REVIEW: Helen Slater is seventeen-year-old Billie Jean, a sweet but self-assured girl living in a coastal Texas trailer park. Her younger brother Binx (Christian Slater, no relation) rides a killer motorscooter bought with their dad’s life insurance payout until a local jerk named Huby trashes it. Billie Jean demands money for the repairs from Huby’s dad, Mr. Pyatt (Richard Bradford), owner of a local surf store, and her world soon spirals out of control. Pyatt puts some skin-crawling moves on Billie Jean, and when he doesn’t take no for an answer, she heroically knees him in the crotch. Binx accidentally shoots him, and suddenly, they’re on the lam for armed robbery, with a couple of friends as accomplices. The film careens through suburban escapades that are short on logical causality but feature plenty of goofy energy and righteous anger.
Bradford’s performance as Pyatt is perfectly slimy. Not only is he an attempted rapist, he’s a capitalist too, taking advantage of Billie Jean’s sudden infamy by selling merchandise emblazoned with a scantily clad photo of her. He lies to the cops and the media, who gleefully run with a story of drugged-out, teenage stick-up artists. As she eludes arrest, Billie Jean takes control of her image and weaponizes it; rocking a Joan of Arc-inspired punk makeover, she declares her innocence in a videotaped manifesto, a viral video star decades before Tik-Tok, becoming a folk hero. Her bad reputation helps her rescue an abused child and inspires scores of lookalikes whose underground network keeps her safe. And like Joan before her, Billie listens to a voice within her that won’t accept injustice, and her story ends in fire.
Helen Slater does an excellent job navigating Billie Jean’s evolution, which comes as both a result of her circumstances and an exhilarating act of liberation. It’s good work, only slightly hampered by her phony Texas accent. The entire cast is a blast. Peter Coyote provides some gravity as the sympathetic cop on Billie Jean’s trail, and Keith Gordon is amusing as Lloyd, a movie-obsessed rich kid who falls for Billie Jean, enthusiastically tying himself up to be her hostage. The romance is wedged into the plot without much grace, but Gordon’s nerdy charm makes it work. This is Christian Slater’s first movie, and his nervy, high-wire energy is already present, although, unfortunately, his real-life crush on his on-screen sister is painfully obvious.
Aspects of The Legend of Billie Jean are cheap and tossed off, the product of a Hollywood system that didn’t care much about the young people whose money it was chasing. Workmanlike cinematography holds the movie back; in places, it appears Billie Jean was always destined for the boob tube, back when television was considered inherently inferior. But that cheap look also lends it a naturalism other teen movies sometimes lack, and certain shots are fantastic, with images that capture the feeling of sunburned, summertime exhaustion, when reality distorts and shimmers above the concrete.
Sweltering Texas heat lays over everything, oppressive as the desperation and inequity the kids fight against. So there’s real relief and beauty when Billie Jean unveils her new look to the gang, neon lights rippling through the cool blues of a swimming pool at night. It’s cheesy, sure — she’s wearing a sleeveless wetsuit. But the scene marks a liminal space in which transformation, and even transcendence, is possible. It’s the perfect moment that comes along only once or twice when you’re young — if you’re lucky. Billie Jean seizes that moment.
NOSTALGIA-FEST OR REPRESSED NIGHTMARE? Sublimely silly, surprisingly real, and totally unafraid to say what’s on its mind, The Legend of Billie Jean defies its own weaknesses with a rebel yell. Watch it on a lazy summer afternoon, then dive into the pool and crank the soundtrack.
RETROGRADE: B
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