Jawbreaker

Jawbreaker, released in 1999 is a teen pop-culture dark comedy starring Rose McGowan, Julie Benz, Rebecca Gayheart, and featured a cameo by Marilyn Manson, and music performances by The Donnas. Many critics criticize this film for being a blatant rip-off or even plagiarism of the classic film, Heathers. This film however was a huge influence on the hit Mean Girls. In someway this film could be described as Clueless that starts with an accidental murder, that just becomes a shit show from there. This film was a box-office, and critical failure, however it found a cult fan following in the home video market. Some critics have said that it was one of the worst films of 1999, and have universally given it bad reviews. One review even said that the plot would fall apart if even one of the characters would just use some basic common sense. But is it really that bad? I have always appreciated it, in all of its campy badness, I have always found beauty and humour, and not just because of the great music by the Donnas (by the way why couldn't a band like The Donnas have played my senior prom?). This film is greatly satirical of of the pop-culture films of the 90's, and is an over exaggeration of the stereotypes on tropes of those films. I actually think that it is honestly a quite well done, and really funny. The movie is bad in all of the right ways, it is so stupid that it is funny, and I mean that in a good way. I grew up becoming a teen in the 90s, this film came out the year I graduated highschool, and I grew up on those 90s teen films, and honestly I would rather watch this than some shit show like American Pie, this movie takes all of those tropes and overdoes them, resulting in it taking a giant shit on those tropes pointing out how ridiculous the idea of a high school pop-fashion icon is. This film is just over the top, in colour, in parody, in every way really. So again is it really all that bad? Yes, but that is part of why it is so great, and why it has found a cult following among 90s kids all grown up, and should have been the final nail in the coffin of teen films that it was a parody off, but then American Pie helped to keep the teen comedy going, and going, and going, oh god will they ever fucking end... This movie is sexy and funny, and dark. I do actually like this movie, and maybe it will be another 10 years before I watch it again, but I will definitely watch it again. Would I recommend this film? No, not to everyone, but if you are a 90s teen and you want a trip down memory lane with a film I am sure you forgot even existed, watch this film again. It is fun, and funny, and it is a reminder of even though there was some good shit from our generation, that pop-culture of our generation was also a fucking joke. Remember why we hated the popular kids in school, well this film will help you remember that. It also says something about the division between the rich popular kids and the poor outcast kids. So no, you probably shouldn't watch this film, you probably won't like it, but I do like it, I actually quite love this film, and I would hope that you give it a chance, but would totally understand that if you saw it, you would hate it.