Risky Business

I recently watched "Risky Business" on Netflix streaming video for the first time since the movie originally came out (1983).   There was a time when one might watch 80s movies primarily to laugh at the era -- the hairstyles, the music, etc.   But this movie seems to reach from the past for something more.

Maybe that's because it has always been a classic and beautifully made, especially when you get beyond the most famous goofy scenes that everyone remembers.   The movie purports to be funny but there is a powerful, sad dark thread running all the way through it, moreso thanks to the moody music of Tangerine Dream which is the backdrop to many of the scenes.   Things work out well for Joel, Tom Cruise's character, but you're not so sure that it's going to be so good in the long run.  I never knew this, but according to a 2008 New York Times review apparently a happier ending than the director intended was tacked on by the studio.  It makes sense.  And that's kind of how life felt in those days, even if things were going well at the moment, the future felt very much in doubt.

I also remember how I received it at the time -- the signature line "sometimes you just gotta say 'what the fuck'" seemed profound advice in the eyes of the sheltered high school kid I myself was at that time.  And it's still true, sometimes you do just gotta say what the fuck, but from my adult eyes now there's also the knowledge of experience that some times that attitude can land you in a world of crap.

Then there's the thing that is increasingly striking in this and other movies from that time too.  They're still current enough to not seem like ancient history.  But yet it is such a different world -- there are no cell phones, no internet, no Google.  People still have to find each other if they want to talk.   Where did all the time go that is now filled by looking at different screens?     It feels like we've gained a lot of technology, but lost a whole lot more of everything else.