Teen romance `Earth' hits the right notes
By LAURA PETELLE
Scene Writer
When a wealthy boarding-school boy meets a small-town girl on the big screen, what can viewers expect but a wrong-side-of-the-tracks romance?
Add a fiery collision, a pre-existing small-town boyfriend, a judge with creative sentencing powers and a medical condition, and you have all the elements of "Here on Earth," the latest in a series of teen romance flicks that includes "10 Things I Hate about You," "She's the One" and "Down to You." "Here on Earth" is a fun and poignant member of this genre, if occasionally melodramatic.
Chris Klein plays wealthy boarding school student Kelley Morse, who receives a Mercedes for graduation and, in true boarding-school fashion, sneaks out with his friends to drive it and taunt the townies. He pushes farm-boy Jasper (Josh Hartnett, with a very bad haircut) too far, and Jasper and his friend hop in their car and race Kelley and his friends. The race ends when the boys run over the gas pumps outside Mable's Table — the restaurant owned by Samantha Cavanaugh (Leelee Sobieski) and her family — setting off an explosion from which the boys escape relatively unscathed, but which burns the restaurant to the ground.
Kelley and Jasper are sentenced to community service, in the form of helping rebuild the diner and Kelley, lacking a place to live in town, moves in with Jasper's family. Kelley is supposed to be a sullen, wrath-filled young man who acts out because his mother died and his father pays him no attention, but that's tough to accept from the good-natured Klein. At any rate, Kelley makes no effort to be part of the town until he and Samantha discover each other and slowly fall in love.
Samantha is forced to decide between Jasper, whom she's known forever and who is her best friend, and Kelley, who could be "just another rich boy" looking for kicks — like the rich boy who got her older sister pregnant and left. It is Samantha's indecision — and her ultimate decision — which provides the pivot point for the movie.
Although all three young actors are good – Klein, Sobieski, and Hartnett all excel at portraying a complicated range of emotions, including angst in all its forms — the movie suffers from lack of character development. Jasper is presented as a not-too-bright farm boy at the beginning, yet as the movie goes on, he keeps coming up with sensitive, insightful lines that seem beyond the reach of his character. Kelley never quite seems sullen enough to make viewers believe he would act the way he does, nor is his growing acceptance by the town — and his growing acceptance of the town — very well portrayed.
And it would be the rare 18-year-old who could deal with the events at the end of the movie with the maturity that Kelley shows. Samantha's character is the best-developed of the three, but one remains unsure as to why she fell for Kelley, other than his staggering good looks and well-muscled physique. The writers want viewers to believe it is Kelley's love of Robert Frost that wins Samantha's heart, but that seems contrived.
Regardless of weaknesses in the script, all three principle parts are well-played, and the supporting cast is excellent — if substantially less attractive than the three leading characters. Samantha's father, in particular, is a believable character as a craggy-faced cop who loves his family. And the writers do have a genuine ear for how teenagers and teen lovers talk to one another, although it is irritating to be asked (once again) to believe that every 18-year-old in the world hops in the sack every 20 minutes.
"Here on Earth" is definitely worth seeing, especially for those moviegoers (like this reviewer) who harbor a secret liking for teen romance movies. And seeing Klein shirtless is worth the four bucks. But it's a three-hankie flick, so make sure to bring the Kleenex box.
--3 and 1/2 out of 5 shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, March 30, 2000
