“Charlie, attempt to be cool.”

Justin’s rating: Jeff Daniels is a boxers man, I learned

Justin’s review: I never really moved in the same cinematic circles as Melanie Griffith. Nothing against her, she’s just not in films I tend to see. But as fate would have it, we met in 1986’s Something Wild due to a few recommendations to see this romcom. Honestly, I’ll show up to almost anything if my best boy Jeff Daniels is there, and he is so here. And a very young here, I might add.

Charlie’s (Daniel) an uptight investment banker who’s secretly yearning for something a bit more. That something comes in the form of Lulu (Griffith), a wild and highly impulsive woman who all but kidnaps him after a diner lunch. What begins as a quirky road trip ends up being a matter of life and death as Charlie tags along to Lulu’s old stomping grounds and encounters her psychotic ex (Ray Liotta, who majored in psychotic exes in college).

So it starts as a freewheeling romcom and then transitions into a thriller of sorts, taking Charlie and Lulu on a journey from attraction to genuine love. Secrets are unveiled, and Charlie finds that being spontaneous is both a blessing and a curse. He gets dunked into her life, big-time, a crash course in all things Lulu.

When I was younger and starved for romance, I used to admire the female leads in movies like this — your various brands of manic pixie dream girls. I thought it was the dream of dreams to have a gorgeous passionate girl sweep me off my feet. Now? All I can think of is that while passion is great, hitching your wagon to someone who is constantly unstable would be terrifying after the end credits. There’s a wide gulf between spur-of-the-moment dates and settling down for a steady life together.

The shift in genre — right about when Lulu changes her hair from brunette to blonde — is where Something Wild kind of lost me. I was totally on board with the standard romcom progression, but taking those good feelings and trading them for uncomfortable tension isn’t my idea of fun.

But that’s kind of the point, too. Charlie was too deep into the rut and routine of being a Wall Street yuppie and desperate to be dragged out of that life. When he gets it, it’s both the best thing he’s ever experienced and terrible as well.

I get the sense that this Jonathan Demme-directed movie has a lot of potential to be a topic for film school essays for its layers and genre-twisting development. But a light-hearted whimsical entertainment, this is not. Interesting, though.

Intermission!

• I like how the title theme transitions to being diegetic as it’s played on a boombox of a guy walking away from the camera
• Remember pagers?
• “You’re a closet rebel.”
• That is one heck of a pipe
• You think that having a handcuff dangling from your wrist would get you pretty noticed
• The Wild Thing singalong in the car, love it
• Yeah you play that harpsichord you crazy lady
• Those are incredibly silly tiny hats
• “You’re a great girl and you’re loaded with potential, but you’re too much for me.”
• That accountant’s wife is really odd. Tell me I’m not the only one.
• It’s a somewhat normal-looking John Waters
• “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”
• Sing us out, lady!