River's Edge: Apathy in America

River’s Edge is a forgotten classic of the eighties, accomplishing a feat that few films have manage to do:

Accurately portray teenagers in a movie.

Dennis Hopper, Crispin Glover, and Keanu Reeves lead a cast that portrays American despair at its finest. They are the embodiment of a disconnect between generations; the unheard and unimportant children of an aimless age forced to find refuge in the company of one another.

The plot involves the death of a high school student named Jamie, strangled on a hill overlooking a river by her lover; a troubled teen named Samson. Void of feeling and remorse, Samson nonchalantly admits his crime to friends.

The revelation is met with amusement and disbelief until they are brought to the hill and see the body first hand, sparking the actions and conflict of the film.

Samson is an emotionless and uncaring monster, his act of murder a transcendent moment of clarity that allowed him to accept and possibly even embrace his depravity. No longer caring, he gracelessly accepts Layne’s (Crispin Glover) attempts to assist him, recognizing that it is offered in an attempt to maintain the status quo rather than any genuine friendship.

Matt (Keanu Reeves) is noticeably unnerved,and his conflicting feelings regarding loyalty and justice are central to the film. Matt finds comfort in the arms of Clarissa (Ione Skye), resulting in the film’s only genuine relationship, illustrating a sharp contrast between them and their peers.

Writer Neal Jimenez based his script on the 1987 murder of Macy Renee Conrad in Milpitas, California. Fictionalizing the account for film, Jimenez captured the youth of that time perfectly, creating a thoughtful and unnerving window into the past.

River's Edge is a lasting portrait of fear, angst, drug culture, teen sexuality, lethargy and hopelessness; themes that have resurfaced in American culture generation after generation. Though the film’s setting and characters belong wholly to the 1980’s, its subject matter is timeless, universal and disturbing.

-Kami Lebaredian

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