Fast Times at Ridgemont High

A group of Southern California high school students navigate the turbulent waters of romance, sex, mall culture, and part-time jobs while a carefree surfer clashes with a stern history teacher.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High didn’t live up to its overinflated hype, but it was still entertaining, and captured the essence of the early 80’s, from the primitive video games to fashions and slang. One thing director Amy Heckerling always manages to do well in these aimless teen comedies (e.g. CLUELESS) is integrate what is current-at-the-moment clothes and dialect. This may tend to date her movies, but it also serves as an accessible time capsule to that time.

The movie, based on Cameron Crowe’s supposedly factual book, centers around a group of high school kids, most of which work at the mall. Judge Reinhold takes pride in his burger-flipping job, a very young-looking Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates work at a dine-in pizza parlor, and dorky Brian Backer takes movie tickets while his slimeball friend Robert Romanus scalps concert tickets. The unemployed characters are also seen around the mall, with Sean Penn’s pothead character Jeff Spicoli attempting to get service sans shirt in Reinhold’s burger joint and beefy football player Forrest Whitaker shoving quarter after quarter into Space Invaders and Pac-Man.

There are plenty of in-school scenes featuring two teachers on opposite sides of the spectrum. Vincent Schiavelli is the nervous, outgoing type who wants all the kids to like him and Ray Walston is the crusty old fart who runs his class like a military outfit. Walston’s main problem is braindead Spicoli, who disrupts class on a regular basis and even has a pizza delivered to the classroom one day.

In the Heckerling tradition, there’s not much of a plot, just a series of loosely related scenes, most of which involve sex. Cates schools Leigh on a certain sexual technique, Backer tries to work up the courage to ask Leigh out, Reinhold is walked in on by Cates during an intimate personal moment, Penn trashes Whitaker’s car, and so on. These anecdotal-type scenes work as a whole and manage to be almost poignant, especially in its telling of Leigh’s disastrous history with men and boys.

Cameron Crowe knows how people act and interact, and scripts it well. The ensemble cast acts it well, particularly Penn and Leigh. FAST TIMES is a quintessentially 80’s movie, which means it includes sex and nudity. For anyone looking for an authentic retro coming-of-age experience, it stands out as an essential classic movie to watch on MovieToWatch.

At Ridgemont High in Southern California, sophomore Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) works at the local mall food court and seeks dating advice from her more worldly, confident friend Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates). Stacy is eager to lose her virginity and gain adult experience, while shy cinema usher Mark “Rat” Ratner (Brian Backer) crushes on Stacy from afar, relying on dubious romantic pointers from his slick ticket-scalping friend, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus).

Meanwhile, Stacy’s older brother, high school senior Brad Hamilton (Judge Reinhold), takes enormous pride in his status as a trusted assistant manager at All-American Burger, hoping to save enough money to pay off his car and maintain his social popularity. In the classroom, chronically stoned surfer Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) wages a continuous war of wills against rigid, authoritarian history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), who is determined to keep Spicoli from slacking off.

Complications mount when Stacy agrees to go out on a clumsy date with Ratner. After Ratner gets cold feet and fails to make a romantic move, an emotionally confused Stacy ends up sleeping with Damone in a pool house. The encounter leads to an unplanned pregnancy, but when Stacy confronts Damone for financial and emotional help to pay for an abortion, he cowardly abandons her, forcing Brad to step up and support his sister.