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What a beautiful movie!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Smooth Talk is one of the few films ever made whose climactic scene takes place on the borderline between reality and the imagination. That scene is done so beautifully by Dern and Treat Williams that one never forgets it. But the whole movie is full of wonderful moments. For instance, after her first fight with her mother (and the sparks that fly between Dern and Mary Kay Place every time their eyes meet capture the hormones-versus-hormones explosiveness of adolescence versus middle age marvelously) Dern walks through a fruit orchard. This is Chopra's way of hinting to us that the Garden of Eden, the loss of innocence, lies behind the story. The parents are house-poor, having had enough money to buy the house three years ago but not to decorate it. The inside is a chaos of paint cans, ladders, strips of wallpaper. This mirrors the chaos inside the emotions of the developing girl.There are some awkward scenes in this film version of the famous Joyce Carol Oates story, "Where are you going? Where have you been?", mainly because the original short story was set in the 1950's and the film is set in the 1980's thus the James Dean posters in Connie's room, the fact that Arnold Friend (Treat Williams) is a James Dean look-a-like who drives a muscle car, and that all the high school kids hang out at the local drive-in seem out of place in the 1980's. And yet, even with the anachronisms, as an evocation of a certain time of life it still works. Anyways, the film tells of young fifteen year old Connie who discovers herself at a local burger place. Well, I guess that is over simplifying it a bit. She lives in the shadow of her older, perfect sister and she suffers under the sharp eye of her defeated mother. She feels hated and alone and so this moves her to act out, seeking attention from boys who find her attractive and deem her rather easy. The film moves around at an almost stagnant pace for a while, allowing us to see Connie in various compromising situations without really letting anything happen that sustains our interest. Then all of a sudden this guy who we have seen briefly throughout the film makes his advancements to Connie in a rather strange way and we are supposed to be drawn into her ultimate decision.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

I was impressed with Laura's acting and thought she portrayed the difficulty of dealing with coming of age in a touching and realistic manner. Her hormones outpaced her friends noticeably and that put her at odds with her closest friends and also made her the target of males far beyond her abilities to understand and defend herself from. My daughter is now grown and survived her teen years quite well. I thought of this film often during those years and am thankful she did not develop early and that she had sufficient parenting to avoid characters such as Treat played. I have not found this movie available on tape or disc and feel that that is a great loss.

I recently watched this movie in my Creative Writing class. I keep reading these other reviews and you all are saying that the acting is excellent. Are you serious? Laura Dern and Treat Williams are quite terrible actually. It was so bad that this is pretty much the only movie that you can find yourself making fun of practically every single line in the whole movie. My class had an absolute field day with this flic. A couple of our "favorite" parts had to be when Williams, a.k.a. "Arnold Friend" rolled up to Dern's house and started going nuts when his music kicked up...yeah, a little creepy...Or when he opened the door and swung out on it. Yeah, real smooth Arnold. What did me in was when Arnold freaked out on Ellie (the freaky dude in the car) whenever Ellie talked. Arnold went from deep-voiced/seductive creep guy to a little girl when he screamed at Ellie to stop ruining everything. I think it's about time we grew up, Arnold. If you haven't seen this movie, then keep it that way. Your IQ will probably drop about 10 points if you do.

The movie is for the most part was good. I recommend reading the short story which it is based on before you see the movie. The movie sticks to the plot for the most part, but there are a few differences that shouldn't have been added in. The roles of the parents were good and accurately got across the ideas that Connie disliked in them. Laura Dern as Connie did an average job of portraying Connie, the shallow 15 year old. Treat Williams was excellent as the disturbing Arnold Friend. The biggest problem with this film is they gave it a Hollywood "happily ever after" which is completely different from the dark ending of the story. "Where you are going, where have you been" is a very good story and is much darker than "Smooth Talk" but if you are a fan of the story, check this out to compare.