Fast Times at Ridgemont High is something of a time capsule movie for the high school experience in the 1980s. The film is based on a book written by Cameron Crowe (who also wrote the screenplay for the movie). Crowe had gone undercover for a year at an actual high school. The characters are generally pretty memorable. My favorite characters are probably the uptight history teacher and the stoner Jeff Spicoli (played by the great Sean Penn). The movie covers about a year's worth of school, showing the characters' ups and downs in their daily lives. Something noticeable about this movie is that it helped launch the careers of Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, and Nicolas Cage. This time period is covered in about an hour and a half. Because of this, it feels incredibly time-crunched at points. They do acknowledge this with throwaway lines in the movie. The characters don't always feel very well-balanced throughout. Sometimes they'll just disappear and then reappear over long stretches of time, which left me wondering what happened with this character or that character. Tonally, the movie can have jarring shifts. It will go from a scene where I'm laughing my ass off to a scene where Jennifer Jason Leigh is at an abortion clinic. I do know a lot of this can be dealt with in high school, but it could've been handled a lot more strongly in a movie. The performances are pretty damn solid overall. Again, Sean Penn is the absolute scene-stealer. I also really loved Ray Walston as Mr. Hand (the previously mentioned uptight teacher). The moments where these two are just trying to upstage one-another are some of the movie's best. Despite some noticeable flaws, I still enjoyed this movie for the characters and their development, as well as the movie's really strong comedic moments.
7 / 10
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