A Disappointment

One of the movies I have recently watched in a bid to winnow down my backlog of unwatched tapes was what appeared to be a quintessential 80s sex comedy, "The Allnighter". It stars Susannah Hoffs, who is rightfully best known for being one of the Bangles. Joan Cusack is in there too, as is Michelle Pfeiffer's sister and Pam Grier. The premise is a standard one. Some college girls and their male counterparts are facing the final days of their college experience, and are eager to make the most of it.

Three coeds live in an improbably nice beach house. Susannah is unlucky in love, and wants at least a fling. Michelle Pfeiffer's sister is engaged to a terrible guy- a middle-aged businessman- and Joan Cusack seems wholly devoted to recording everything on her camera. Now, obviously there we have the makings of a perfectly good movie. Regrettably, nothing plays out the way one might hope. If I only could have known, I would have passed.

The end of the first act somehow felt like the end of the second act. From there, it seemed as if the movie was killing time until it could actually reach that point in the film's running time. Positively nothing memorable happened, sexually or otherwise. Pam Grier's appearance, which I saw as something of a life preserver, was a horrible disappointment, and there went the last hope of the movie-watching experience being more that a total loss.

In fairness, there was one thing that kept me going to the finish. One of the guys- a surfer known as Killer- made something out of his every appearance. Well before the finish, he had the good sense to bail on the proceedings in favor of a solitary trip around the world. I can't fault him for that, but that was really it for the movie. It's really too bad. Susannah Hoffs could have had something, if only the film were in the hands of someone more capable than her own mother.