Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon
Directed by William Richert
Image Entertainment 1988 DVD/VHS Feature Film
R

This film is set in Evanston, Illinois, in the summer of 1962. William Richert directs from his own novel. Seventeen-year-old Jimmy Reardon (River Phoenix) tries to come up with the money he needs to get to Hawaii where his country club girlfriend (Meredith Salenger) is going to college). An amateur poet, he stands apart form his rich peers. Like the Englishman in Stars and Bars, Jimmy Reardon comes to a new sense of himself while under great stress. Here the protagonist seduces his best friend’s girl (Ione Skye) and is seduced by his mother’s best friend (Ann Magnuson). Jimmy also draws closer to his suburbanite father (Paul Koslo), who is a philanderer. A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon may not deserve any accolades, but it does add some fresh twists on the coming-of-age genre of movies.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat