Jawbreaker

Jawbreaker is a unique movie, in that it has no real overarching rhetorical message. Its entertainment comes from its campiness and visual design. Set in high school, like many other teen films, we follow the beginning narration of Fern, who is characterized as a dorky nobody. She really looks up to the most popular clique at school, the “Fabulous Four”, made up of Courtney, Marcie, Julie, and Liz. She especially admires Liz for her kindness, as well as beauty, and out of the four, Liz is generally the most well-liked. However, once a birthday prank for Liz goes horribly wrong, Fern has to navigate whether to keep the remaining girls’ secret or come clean. The dialogue in the movie is intentionally verbose and almost sing-songy, and many times, goofy sound effects are put over scenes. Also the actions of the characters are often ridiculously off-kilter, which adds to how strange the film tends to be. It is an intentional mix of absurdist comedy and the darker subject of death, no doubt influenced by its predecessors like Heathers. Although it might seem a bit silly, it does make the watch thoroughly entertaining. This is only further helped by the costume design, which is flashy and saturated. In fact, a lot of the film is centered around aesthetics, especially the filming of the end scene. It takes the stereotypical look of the high school movie aesthetic and glamorizes it to absurdity, not unlike the way the plot does the same. The soundtrack is very catchy and stands alone as a pretty amazing album, centering mostly around alternative rock. Additionally, there is a lot of queer subtext, especially in Fern’s admiration of Liz, which can be hard to find in a high school comedy. This is not all to say that the movie is completely appropriate for all ages, as there is mentions of dark topics such as sexual assault and more adult themes underlying many sections. Obviously this is purposeful to characterize the mindset of the villains, with them being in high school and all, but I would not recommend it to anyone under the age of 15/16, especially not if they cannot handle adult themes. Also, if you are looking for a more ‘meaningful’, serious movie, this would not be the best watch. But if you like high school movies, black comedy, absurdist humor, and fun character design, I would definitely recommend. I think as far as high school movies go, this one is criminally underrated, since it is very fun and captures the essence of the genre really well, but it is sadly just not very well-know. Nowadays, it has seen a slight resurgence and become somewhat of a cult-classic, but most people still don’t even know it exists. Jawbreaker is rated R and is currently watchable on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Vudu. It has been on Netflix before also, and if you search for it, you might even be able to find it in clips on Youtube.