I've seen this movie several times, and every time I see it I'm amazed anew at how wonderfully, bizarrely nihilistic it is. It's a disturbing little piece of cinema -- how many movies actually make you want to punch out a 12-year-old character? -- but amazing nonetheless.
Based on the true story of a teenager in Milpitas, CA, who killed his girlfriend and brought his friends to view her body, "River's Edge" records a few days activity among a group of disaffected kids, and how their lives are interrupted when one of their buddies murders his girlfriend and--essentially--dares them to turn him in. Woven into the narrative is an unblinking, flat-eyed look at the inner lives of people who really don't care what happens around them.
Samson (Daniel Roebuck) strangles his girlfriend, Jamie, and leaves her naked body on the river bank. The opening of the film shows him drinking beer and howling at the sky in the early morning mist, apparently exhilarated by his accomplishment; he is viewed through the eyes of Tim (Joshua Miller), who has ridden his bike to the bridge to throw his younger sister's doll into the river. Tim is a piece of work. Because of his youth (he is 12) and his crappy home life (he lives with his constantly quarreling mother and stepfather) you want to feel sorry for him but the movie posits him as such a nasty little jerk that you find yourself wishing someone would throw HIM off the bridge.
For the rest of the movie, Samson's friends will react by varying degrees to the murder as he shows them the body and explains -- in a way curiously devoid of inflection -- that he killed her because she was "talking sh*t" about his mother (thus setting up one of my favorite conversations in the whole movie, between a frenetic Layne (Crispin Glover) and his concerned girlfriend, Clarissa (Ione Skye) -- when Clarissa says "What, he kills Jamie and we just pretend it never happened?" Layne snaps back "He HAD his REASONS!").
The reactions of the friends form the core of the movie -- why don't they care? Why, when they are shown their friend and classmate lying naked and rapidly purpling on the riverbank, do they not immediately run to the police? Why do they spend two days driving around town, scoring weed from the local crazy drug dealer, Feck (psychotically essayed by Dennis Hopper) and having sex in a local park while they discuss what they ought to do? Wouldn't any sane person's reaction be to call the authorities and turn Samson in? Well, wouldn't it? Along with Tim the evil 12-year-old, Crispin Glover's Layne seems to be the embodiment of the problem. Jittery in a way that will make anyone who has ever used amphetamines wish they didn't know exactly how he feels, skittering along a path laid by a seriously skewed moral compass, Layne is convinced that true friendship can only be expressed by helping Samson escape prosecution for the murder of their friend. Accordingly, he lectures the group about how they must all stick together and show the world that they are a team. You'd think he was exhorting soldiers for a last push into enemy territory, rather than attempting to force a bunch of stoned, confused, apathetic kids to protect a possibly-sociopathic acquaintance.
Adult influence is represented by Dennis Hopper's Feck, who likes to remind people that he once killed a woman and "They are still after me!" Feck, a one-legged fugitive biker, lives in a ramshackle house full of motorcycle parts and marijuana. His only companion is a blow-up doll named Ellie; he dresses her and dances with her and treats her with gentle solicitude. Only Dennis Hopper could make you wonder if Feck even knows Ellie is a doll; at one point he tells Samson, "She's a doll. I know she's a doll."--but, being Dennis Hopper, he delivers this final proof of his sanity just before drawing a gun and shooting Samson in the head. Ultimately, the viewer decides it doesn't matter because Feck is fascinating either way.
Keanu Reeves, as Tim's older brother Matt, is...Keanu Reeves. He's playing the same slightly confused, not-quite-bright teenage stoner that he always played before he landed "The Matrix", but you can believe he'd be the only one with enough conscience to turn Samson in to the local police -- just as you can believe he'd be righteously indignant when the interviewing detective suggests he might have something to do with the murder (another fabulous line: "What was your relationship to this girl, anyway? Did you love her, did you hate her, did you f**k her when you got bored? WHAT?") The murderous Samson is portrayed with dead-eyed perfection by Daniel Roebuck as a kid who seems to have decided very early on that since we're all going to die anyway, it doesn't really matter what we do while we're here. His soliloquy about how incredibly alive he felt after murdering Jamie is bone-chilling, as is his rapidly escalating antisocial behavior; he goes from quietly acceding to anything Layne asks (at the beginning of the film) to angrily pulling a gun on a convenience store clerk toward the end (while Feck, clutching Ellie in the aisle of the store, asks, sweetly, "Do you have Bud in bottles?") You get the distinct feeling that, left to his own devices, Samson would have a body count pretty fast.
The message of the movie is that there is no message. It plays as a documentary, almost, and simply presents the event and the subsequent confusion of the kids as something that happened once. I think that's why the movie works so well. It doesn't have any message, it just has a story, and the story will stick with you forever.
Based on the true story of a teenager in Milpitas, CA, who killed his girlfriend and brought his friends to view her body, "River's Edge" records a few days activity among a group of disaffected kids, and how their lives are interrupted when one of their buddies murders his girlfriend and--essentially--dares them to turn him in. Woven into the narrative is an unblinking, flat-eyed look at the inner lives of people who really don't care what happens around them.
Samson (Daniel Roebuck) strangles his girlfriend, Jamie, and leaves her naked body on the river bank. The opening of the film shows him drinking beer and howling at the sky in the early morning mist, apparently exhilarated by his accomplishment; he is viewed through the eyes of Tim (Joshua Miller), who has ridden his bike to the bridge to throw his younger sister's doll into the river. Tim is a piece of work. Because of his youth (he is 12) and his crappy home life (he lives with his constantly quarreling mother and stepfather) you want to feel sorry for him but the movie posits him as such a nasty little jerk that you find yourself wishing someone would throw HIM off the bridge.
For the rest of the movie, Samson's friends will react by varying degrees to the murder as he shows them the body and explains -- in a way curiously devoid of inflection -- that he killed her because she was "talking sh*t" about his mother (thus setting up one of my favorite conversations in the whole movie, between a frenetic Layne (Crispin Glover) and his concerned girlfriend, Clarissa (Ione Skye) -- when Clarissa says "What, he kills Jamie and we just pretend it never happened?" Layne snaps back "He HAD his REASONS!").
The reactions of the friends form the core of the movie -- why don't they care? Why, when they are shown their friend and classmate lying naked and rapidly purpling on the riverbank, do they not immediately run to the police? Why do they spend two days driving around town, scoring weed from the local crazy drug dealer, Feck (psychotically essayed by Dennis Hopper) and having sex in a local park while they discuss what they ought to do? Wouldn't any sane person's reaction be to call the authorities and turn Samson in? Well, wouldn't it? Along with Tim the evil 12-year-old, Crispin Glover's Layne seems to be the embodiment of the problem. Jittery in a way that will make anyone who has ever used amphetamines wish they didn't know exactly how he feels, skittering along a path laid by a seriously skewed moral compass, Layne is convinced that true friendship can only be expressed by helping Samson escape prosecution for the murder of their friend. Accordingly, he lectures the group about how they must all stick together and show the world that they are a team. You'd think he was exhorting soldiers for a last push into enemy territory, rather than attempting to force a bunch of stoned, confused, apathetic kids to protect a possibly-sociopathic acquaintance.
Adult influence is represented by Dennis Hopper's Feck, who likes to remind people that he once killed a woman and "They are still after me!" Feck, a one-legged fugitive biker, lives in a ramshackle house full of motorcycle parts and marijuana. His only companion is a blow-up doll named Ellie; he dresses her and dances with her and treats her with gentle solicitude. Only Dennis Hopper could make you wonder if Feck even knows Ellie is a doll; at one point he tells Samson, "She's a doll. I know she's a doll."--but, being Dennis Hopper, he delivers this final proof of his sanity just before drawing a gun and shooting Samson in the head. Ultimately, the viewer decides it doesn't matter because Feck is fascinating either way.
Keanu Reeves, as Tim's older brother Matt, is...Keanu Reeves. He's playing the same slightly confused, not-quite-bright teenage stoner that he always played before he landed "The Matrix", but you can believe he'd be the only one with enough conscience to turn Samson in to the local police -- just as you can believe he'd be righteously indignant when the interviewing detective suggests he might have something to do with the murder (another fabulous line: "What was your relationship to this girl, anyway? Did you love her, did you hate her, did you f**k her when you got bored? WHAT?") The murderous Samson is portrayed with dead-eyed perfection by Daniel Roebuck as a kid who seems to have decided very early on that since we're all going to die anyway, it doesn't really matter what we do while we're here. His soliloquy about how incredibly alive he felt after murdering Jamie is bone-chilling, as is his rapidly escalating antisocial behavior; he goes from quietly acceding to anything Layne asks (at the beginning of the film) to angrily pulling a gun on a convenience store clerk toward the end (while Feck, clutching Ellie in the aisle of the store, asks, sweetly, "Do you have Bud in bottles?") You get the distinct feeling that, left to his own devices, Samson would have a body count pretty fast.
The message of the movie is that there is no message. It plays as a documentary, almost, and simply presents the event and the subsequent confusion of the kids as something that happened once. I think that's why the movie works so well. It doesn't have any message, it just has a story, and the story will stick with you forever.