steven@ism70.UUCP (06/20/85)
PERFECT Starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. Also starring Anne DeSalvo, Marilu Henner, Laraine Newman, Mathew Reed and Jann Wenner. Directed by James Bridges. Written by James Bridges and Aaron Latham. Based on articles by Aaron Latham. Produced by James Bridges. Photographed by Gordon Willis. Production Designed by Michael Haller. Edited by Jeff Gourson. Music by Ralph Burns. Music Supervision by Becky Mancuso. From Columbia Pictures (1985). Just another case of writer's wish fulfillment. Aaron Latham gets to be played by John Travolta, go to jail for what he believes in, trash his editor's office and go out with the best looking girl in Hollywood -- all in a day's work. Adam Lawrence (Travolta) gets sent to L.A. by Rolling Stone magazine to file two stories, an interview with John DeLorean (who's called John McKenzie in this film -- Latham did an interview under similar circumstances for Rolling Stone in reality) and a hatchet job on health-clubs-are-the-singles-bars of-the-eighties (which Latham also wrote in real life). In the middle of the Sports Connection he finds Jessie (Jamie Lee Curtis), a smart, suspicious and sexy aerobics instructor unwilling to fall for Travolta's double-talk. I guess that James Bridges and Latham felt like they were making a significant picture about burning journalistic issues and that the aerobics angle was just a hook to get dumb summer movie audiences in the theater. Basically, Bridges and Latham don't have any confidence in what is ostensibly the subject of the picture. There are two nicely sketched characters who have a lot to do with the health club scene, Laraine Newman and Marilu Henner, who have gone there for the guys and have (in Henner's case) succeeded and are happy. But Bridges and Latham want to concentrate on the morality of telling their tales rather than showing their tails (sorry, bad pun). The story is too constrained by Latham's recollections and by the past reality to come off as a sharp pointed drama. It mushes out at the climax, spreading out over a gaggle of scenes that mop up the loose ends. Jamie Lee Curtis' plays her character with a lot of intensity, but inside we feel only hurt. Her sex scenes with Travolta are implied, barely showed. In a movie that tries to equate aerobics with sex, the audience barely gets a chance to experience any sizzle, to work up any sweat at all. Travolta comes off allright, though there is one scene wherein he quotes Emerson to impress Curtis with his intelligence and comes off only as an actor reading words. He communicates empathy, but not a lot of intelligence or any predilection for the kind of bloody-hatchet journalism his character is supposedly so famous for. Jann Wenner must have an even bigger ego than Latham. He was willing to slander his magazine and look like an unscrupulous fool, all for the chance at third billing in a Hollywood movie? Two stars out of four.