Foxes (1980)

Directed by Adrian Lyne. Starring Jodie Foster, Marilyn Kagan, Cherie Currie, Kandice Stroh, Sally Kellerman, Scott Baio, Randy Quaid, Lois Smith, Robert Romanus, Laura Dern. [R]

A quartet of Valley teens cope with their problems, mostly involving sex, drugs, relationships, insecurities, and so forth. Lyne’s directorial debut is a mixed bag, but still better than most of his later films; some of the pseudo-improvisational slice-of-life stuff works in the early going, but too much later on resembles the juvenile delinquency hysteria of the 1940s and 50s (or an Afterschool Special on barbiturates), and when the stories start kicking in, it becomes disjointed and uninteresting. Young cast strains for naturalism, but only one of them effectively pulls it off (no points for guessing who), and “old soul” Foster looks more comfortable sharing scenes with her divorced mom (Kellerman) than any of her friends. Soft-focus photography generates a dreamlike haze of nostalgia/fantasy that works counter to the filmmakers’ sobering goals. First credited film role for Dern.

47/100