Better Off Dead (1985)
[8]
John Cusack stars as a comically suicidal teen who doesn’t think he’ll ever get over being dumped by his girlfriend (Amanda Wyss). As he trains to beat a douchebag high school ski captain in an upcoming downhill race, he starts to find love again with a French foreign exchange student (Diane Franklin) who is dealing with her douchebag host family.
Writer/director Savage Steve Holland delivers an amazingly tight, laugh-a-minute screenplay full of hilarious side characters and running gags. Cusack’s parents are played by David Ogden Stiers (MASH) and Kim Darby (True Grit). Stiers is great as a put-upon father who has resolved to accept fate’s eternal foot in his ass, while Darby’s aloof character serves up an increasingly bizarre array of dinner confections. (One of them literally crawls off Cusack’s dinner plate.) Dan Schneider and Laura Waterbury are equally funny as Franklin’s host family, a mother and son conspiring to force her into a romantic relationship. My favorite joke in the movie comes when Franklin laments to Cusack about what it’s like to live with them. Her English isn’t so good, so she claims Schneider keeps trying to put his testicles all over her. Cusack helps her realize the word she’s reaching for is actually ‘tentacles’. “There’s a big difference.”
As far as running gags go, Better of Dead may have the best ever in the form of an overzealous newspaper delivery boy who haunts Cusack and Stiers for his belated payment of exactly two dollars. This joke hits its crescendo when the boy appears during the climactic skiing competition, dashing after the competitors on a bicycle strapped to skis.
The first half of Holland’s screenplay is a master-class in comedy screenwriting, with every word and moment servicing the fun and humor of the movie. All the dramatic story turns you would expect to eat up precious real estate in the run-time are either skipped or subverted. You know the big breakup is coming in act one, and instead of stopping the fun of the movie for what other writers would have felt obligated to include, Holland simply skips to Cusack’s reactions after the breakup. And when a flashback shows us how Cusack and Wyss met and fell in love, we aren’t subjected to insufferable getting-to-know-you small talk. Instead we see two characters so afraid they have an errant hair or booger, that they end up brushing their ears, nose, and hair in escalating paranoia. It’s kinda brilliant.
On top of a tight script and funny performances all around, Better Off Dead features several hand-drawn and stop-motion animation sequences and an awesome soundtrack of memorable ’80s tunes that further push it over the top. I’m a tough critic on comedy films because they often feel too forced or contrived, so transparently conceived to please that I can feel the creative partners involved sweating the mandate to sing, dance, and amuse. Be funny, don’t be boring, don’t get bogged down in plot, make us laugh, make us laugh, make us laugh. Very few films can walk that highwire and deliver as far as I’m concerned. But if I had to make a list of the ten funniest movies I’ve ever seen, Better Off Dead would probably make that list.
With Curtis Armstrong (Revenge of the Nerds).
