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USA 1992
Director: Katt Shea
Cast: Sara Gilbert, Drew Barrymore, Tom Skerritt, Cheryl Ladd, Alan Stock, Jeanne Sakata
Rating: R
Release Date: 2 November 1999 (DVD)
Running Time: 1 hour 33 minutes
The Movie Review
Drew Barrymore the Poison Ivy
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| POISON IVY |
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In the early 90s, Poison Ivy was very popular and I couldn't rent it for age reason. But, if you have many older cousins like me, it would be easy to wait for them to rent or buy a copy of Poison Ivy Betamax (Indonesia was familiar with Betamax instead of VHS) and then sneaked into their rooms to watch the film. And almost anyone I know who was also a movie buff must've known Drew Barrymore. She was so popular and clearly a movie with such controversial content headlined by her is not to be missed.
Ivy befriends an introverted rich kid, Sylvie Cooper (Sara Gilbert), who is a compulsive liar and has issue with low self-esteem. Ivy (Drew Barrymore) is the total opposite of her as Ivy is coming from a dad who despises her which making her a rebellious and wild teenager. Typical bad girl that what Ivy is, but unfortunately Ivy is also a darn smart girl. Both of them confess to each other to have no friends at all and soon enough both become BFFs.
However, once Ivy lays her eyes on Sylvie's mansion, her ill mom (Cheryl Ladd) who doesn't have any will to live and a lonely rich father (Tom Skerritt), Ivy may have another agenda of her own to the Cooper's family and it's not going to be pretty...
Drew Barrymore is comfortable in her roles as this manipulative teenager who tricks people into doing what she wants. And interesting is apparently Drew Barrymore's pre-teen years were spent indulging in awful horrible stuff that labeling her bad girl was appropriate but also making her role in Poison Ivy looks so natural and far from being fake or wooden. This movie is one of her roles as bad girl and in Poison Ivy she is not as wild as in her other movies for the nudity is quite concealed.
Re-viewing Poison Ivy brought back memory of the 90s, that is for sure... None other because everything in this movie really represents many many late 80s and early 90s erotic thriller cinema. From the visualization, camerawork, and especially music score, Poison Ivy is a subtle and erotic but unfortunately it moves slowly with no real intense scene to behold. I mean everything is toned down, and I don't mind that as long as the story deals with more dose of reality. You see, in order to fully enjoy the story you just have to forget the plot holes exist in Poison Ivy. I guess, this why Poison Ivy looked good when I was a boy and not anymore right now.
Poison Ivy is essentially about rebellious girls in rebellious time of teen age. But some people did grow up so fast in their way of thinking that friends of her age are hard to follow their footsteps. That's mainly what Ivy is, but unfortunately not only does she a smart girl but is also a smooth-talking manipulative seductive heartless b*tch and her level is clearly beyond mere rebellion to school/social norm. And Ivy is actually the glue that sticks the storyline. Yup, Ivy is a very famous/notorious character in the movie world. And the drama is present because Ivy is paired with a man in mid-life crisis. I don't really recommend the movie unless 90s thriller like this is your cup of coffee.
And by the by, Ivy is not the first ever on screen, at least there is a notorious grindhouse film from the 70s with thick air of sleaze titled The Babysitter (1969) featuring Patricia Wymer as Candy Wilson.
> Poison Ivy Movies & Sequels: Poison Ivy II: Lily (1996), Poison Ivy: The New Seduction (1997) and Poison Ivy: The Secret Society (2008).
> Manipulative female on a mission: Body Heat (1981) featuring Kathleen Turner; Chloe (2009) featuring Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried and Wild Things: Foursome (2010).
© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Thursday, 29 November 2011 10:40 pm
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