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Fast Times at Ridgemont High Movie Review

Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 coming-of-age film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It’s a very dated movie.

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“All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine“

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A group of Southern California high school students are enjoying their most important subjects: sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. I did not care for this movie, though I’d expected it would be pretty weak. It’s fun, there is no question about it. But in terms of themes and emotional resonance, the movie is immensely hollow.

This is your typical eighties high school movie with so many unrealistic cliques and dated heterosexual dynamics. It was directed by a woman, but somehow it still felt sexist in its treatment of women as sex objects. I did like the frank depiction of sex-crazed teens and all the vulgar talk, that was quite unexpected and brave for an 80s movie, but the film ended up focusing just on that edginess without offering any worthwhile commentary. It’s basically ‘Big Mouth’ with no insight.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is excellent in an early role for her, but it’s a shame that she was saddled with such an unfortunately sexist and bland role. Others fare somewhat better, but by focusing on four or five different arcs and character sets, the film became rather diluted in its impact as it had no time to properly develop all of these people in a short span of just ninety minutes. It shouldn’t have been longer, but it should have been more focused for sure.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High has one great character and that is Jeffrey Spicoli. Whenever he was on screen, the movie was lit up and it became highly entertaining. Sean Penn is a revelation in this very early role for him, and he is both goofy and quite funny with some of his lines being hilarious. The scenes between him and that teacher stole the show for me.

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The movie also has a very cool soundtrack, pretty good acting and solid pacing. It’s overall well executed technically, but it needed a more sophisticated approach at tackling the high school experience. It’s entertaining, but beyond slight.