Back in CdC #6 I talked about my trials and tribulations of being an employee at a movie theater. I have always wanted to make a film about my experiences at the Star Taylor, even going so far as to write a screenplay about those glorious days of popping corn and mopping aisles (this script will never see the light of day again: it was an assignment for my Comm 428 class and absolutely wretched) but now I feel that don’t have to make a movie-theater movie because Sarah Jacobson has beaten me to it.
The annoying customers who scream out, "Six dollars? I’m not gonna pay that kind of money for a movie!", complaints about the quality of the butter-flavored topping, and romances between the theater staff in Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore offer proof that things are pretty universal among movie theaters. Mary Jane is the consummate theater-worker movie but even non-theater people can enjoy it.
Most of my co-workers at the Star Taylor were between the ages of 17-25 and both they and their hormones were working over-time. Among the gossip and rumors it seemed that everyone was either going out, hoping to go out, or just plain lusting after one of their co-workers (with the object of affection changing from week to week or even shift to shift). We’re not talking love triangles here, we’re talking polygons.
With her seven main characters (a perfect number in that each member of the ensemble cast shares a good deal of screen time with the protagonist, Mary Jane), Jacobson explores both sorted love-lives and relationships between all them with equal weight.
The characters are very fleshed out and much more complex than the stereotypical teens populating other word-centered dreck like Empire Records or college-aged crap like Higher Learning. There was no "kooky girl who will commit suicide by the end of the fourth reel" or no "stoner guy who will clean up his act by the end of the movie." There was one cliché that bugs me, the "one life is exchanged for another," but even that was forgivable. On occasion one or two of the actors come off as over-wrought or wooden but it might just appear that way because of the unsympathetic nature of their characters. Overall, however, the acting is terrific. Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore has got a lot of heart and really reminds me of an updated version of Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The film, shot over three years, is not the story of Mary Jane getting laid. Instead, it’s about her reaction to her first time having sex; it’s not all fireworks and flowers. Instead it’s presented as very true-to-life and as awkward as it really can be. After her initial taste of non-virgin life, Mary Jane tries to give up sex but still can’t help the crushes she feels for various co-workers. Mary Jane is a very empowering. That’s not to say that it has an obvious agenda or that it gets preachy. The film does what every good movie should do—it entertains and even enlightens.
Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore is the first time I’ve ever seen such honest portrayals of people my age and younger. No heavy-handed melodrama or cheesy plot devices. It’s smart movie making by someone who obviously knows what it’s all about.
When I was done watching Mary Jane I just wanted to rewind it, invite a few dozen friends over and watch it again. I thought I enjoyed it the first time I saw it but I dig it even more each time I see it again.
Back to Issue 8