We got back from Omaha on Saturday just in time to catch the end of the Iowa-Iowa State game (a welcome if slightly nervy victory from the Hawkeyes- especially toward the end) and with The Cigarillo safely exhausted and sleeping in bed, the Missus and I decided to have an impromptu Netflix Double Feature and after some browsing, we settled on Struck By Lightning as our first choice.
Struck By Lightning is the story of Carson Phillips (Chris Colfer) who is a writer and aspiring journalist, trying to get into Northwestern so he can someday be editor of The New Yorker. (What is it about The New Yorker that inspires such fanatical devotion? I haven't figured it out yet.) Growing up in a small town in California named Clover, Carson and his friend Malerie (Rebel Wilson) struggle to attract enough interest to put out a school newspaper- all while Carson takes care of his mother (Allison Janney) a divorcee, who seems intent on drinking as much as possible while desperately hoping that Carson doesn't leave home to go to college, leaving her with just Carson's Grandmother (Polly Bergen) who has Alzheimer's to take care of.
When his guidance counselor tells him that in order to get into Northwestern, being President of The Writer's Club or Editor of the school newspaper won't be enough, Carson eventually hits on the idea of starting a literary magazine- that way he can show how he inspires people to write. When his call for voluntary submissions is spurned, however, he and Malerie soon hit on a way of getting a literary magazine they can publish: blackmail.
Yes, blackmail: Carson gets dirt on the powerful and popular at school including head cheerleader Claire (Sarah Hyland) who is sleeping with the Head Coach of the football team (Charlie Finn). This lands him submissions from all the cheerleaders and football players. He tricks the Yearbook Editor Remy Baker (Allie Grant) into sending him a dirty picture of herself. He threatens to out the President of the Drama Club (Graham Rodgers) and the popular rich kid (Nicholas Forbes) unless they contribute to the paper and write for the magazine. Goth girl Vicki (Ashley Rickards) gets hooked via some BDSM-style pictures her religious parents wouldn't approve of. The school pothead (Matt Prokop) drops his pot and in an unusual twist, Carson and Malerie discover that the foreign exchange student Emilio (Robert Aguire) is actually from San Diego and hardly knows any Spanish at all, so he too gets hooked into the literary magazine.
Unfortunately, just when things start going right, they all fall apart for Carson. His father (Dermot Mulroney) has a new fiancee (Christina Hendricks) and they're going to have a baby and their attempt at a reconciliation does not go well. He does get accepted into Northwestern but discovers that since he didn't get a letter in the mail, he didn't confirm so he has to wait two years to re-apply. Which would be bad enough except it turns out his mother hid the letter because she didn't want him to leave. And to top it all off: the literary magazine is a flop thanks to a student backlash against him.
Despite all that, Carson decides that maybe the one story he has left to write is his own and since he actually got students to submit to his literary magazine maybe he's actually happy for once. He walks outside into the rumble of thunder where he gets struck by lightning and killed.
No really, that's what happens. Except it happens at the beginning- so this whole thing is a flashback. BOOM! Didn't see that coming, didja?
Overall: This is a brilliant screenwriting debut for Chris Colfer. The cast is outstanding- you'll recognize pretty much everyone from something or another that you've seen and the story while it threatens to wander into typical high school tropes provides a fresh and original twist by structuring itself as a flashback, given Carson, the unseen (and dead) narrator a chance to see the impression he made on everybody's life. My verdict: **** out of ****
No comments:
Post a Comment