Recently, I saw Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. This movie was fantastic!!! (3 exclamation points means it’s good.) All of my male friends enjoyed the movie, the story, the actresses/actors and the nostalgia of my high school days. Well done, Ms. Cody, you have a new dedicated fan. (Do you give script writing lessons?)
I would like to begin by saying, if you are going into this movie thinking it’s a horror, your wrong. The most closely thing I can compare it to is a very dark satire set in a horror-y movie. (No, the movie is not very scary.) The only thing scary about it is how closely it resembles modern female relationships. No, not the lesbian kind, I’m talking about the friendship relationships.
Jennifer’s Body is a movie that screams to be watched by young women and men, generally high school students. It screams to the nerd crowd to learn to stand up for themselves, to recognize a volatile situation and diffuse it before it gets away from them. It screams for young women to learn what a real friend is versus one that controls the relationship.
The movie follows the flawed relationship between Needy (Seyfried) and Jennifer (Fox). These “best” friends are controlled by Jennifer and after a night of fun and terror at a bar, Needy begins to realize that Jennifer is not all that good for her. She has transformed into a blood-drinking Succubus. (Yes, I know fellow geeks, Succubi do not drink blood, but eat the essence of men, but I think we can let that pass.) Once Needy realizes what Jennifer has become she sets a course to stop the demon and free the town of Devil’s Kettle from the terror that is her “best” friend Jennifer.
Again, this is NOT a HORROR movie. Though it may sound like one, it is not. The only thing scary is the truth that this movie portrays. This relationship that, I’m sure, many women share is something that is hard for men to understand. I do not think that women connect like this with men. I believe this is the reason that many of my female friends tell me that they have more guy friends than girl friends. I think that this movie communicates the intricacies of female relationships much better than Mean Girls and without having to beat you over the head to do it. (Amanda Seyfried is also in Mean Girls. I didn’t realize that, till halfway through Jennifer’s Body.)
I believe that the reason for this is that men do not become jealous of one another in the same way. I know that I am often jealous of my friend’s jobs, cars and girlfriends, but instead of trying to steal them, I would rather “one-up” them. I will fully admit that I have tried to prove that I am better than my friends by getting a better paying job, by trying to find a more desireable girlfriend and getting a nicer car. It’s more of a competition to be better than my friends than steal something from them. But, who is to say what’s better. Male friendships can be equally as harmful and problematic.
I highly recommend this movie. Interestingly, I have been trying to explain this movie to my friends and co-workers and even the women don’t seem to be getting it. I hope that I am not looking at it incorrectly. Jennifer’s Body speaks to me as an avid people watcher and a lover of movies like Army of Darkness. This is a movie I look forward to the DVD release of. I am giving Jennifer’s Body a 9 out of 10. I loved the wit, the humor, the dialogue and the story. The only thing I would have liked to see more of is a stronger relationship between “Needy” and her boyfriend Chip, but it really wasn’t needed.
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