1999 saw many august names added to the film canon — e.g. “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Fight Club,” “The Virgin Suicides,” “Girl Interrupted,” “But I’m a Cheerleader,” “The Blair Witch Project,” “The Sixth Sense,” “The Mummy,” “The Matrix,” “She’s All That,” “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” The remarkable thing isn’t how long that list is, but the fact that I could keep going, if only I had the room.
With such a docket, it’s no shocker that the moviegoers of 1999 let a masterpiece slip through the cracks. I think that “Jawbreaker,” which turned 25 this year and can now rent a car, deserves a spot in the canon alongside those other monuments of film.
Like “Heathers” ten years prior and “Mean Girls” five years later, “Jawbreaker” is based on a five character dynamic. It’s the old three-popular-girls-and-one-different-girl-plus-one-male-lover gag.
If I had to venture a guess at why popular girls come in threes so often in high school movies, I’d take a pseudo-Jungian route: the archetype which birthed Hecate — a triple-bodied goddess of mystical female power — in the Greek imagination is the same as the one to blame for this phenomenon in our movies. Our collective unconscious, via the subconsciouses of our screenwriters, is using “the Plastics to wrestle“ with an ancient aspect of the divine feminine. (Really, it’s just that every director who wants to make a teen movie essentially wants to make “Heathers.“)
Rose McGowan leads the trifecta in “Jawbreaker.” Her mannered, deliberate way of speaking, which usually gets on my nerves, works well for her cold, calculating character. Julie Benz and Rebecca Gayheart, neither of whom wound up being terribly successful later in life, play the talkative one and the pretty one. That’s usually how these three-pronged “longhouse” imagos end up shaking out. It’s always the leader, the talkative one and the pretty (i.e. dumb) one.
Judy Greer — who’s been popping up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe recently but whose best work has been in sitcoms, I feel — plays the outsider, who is literally named Fern. She isn’t written as your stereotypical fourth girl, however. In fact, she discovers that McGowan, Benz and Gay murdered the last fourth girl and uses that info to blackmail her way into the group. She also manages to squeeze a makeover montage out of them, rebranding as “Violette.” Chaos ensues.
The male lover, who is literally named “Chad Christ,” is fine but not breathtaking. If I remember correctly, he’s a Troy Bolton type — a hunk with a heart, a sports player who also acts or something. All the juice is in the female cast, although it's worth noting that the supporting cast (which includes Carol Kane, Pam Grier and Marilyn Manson) is also superb.
The production is incredible too, even though we’re not talking about a “Clueless” budget here. Still, director Darren Stein, who didn’t wind up being terribly successful either, manages to cram a lot of the wealth porn you expect from this sort of movie into the picture on a shoestring budget.
“Jawbreaker” is iconic in the literal sense. Its images have achieved the status of well-recognized visual shorthand, whether or not audiences realize where it comes from. Take the cliched shot of the clique walking down the hallway in ultra slo-mo to an awesome song — that starts with “Jawbreaker.”
The film is also iconic in the slang sense. The opening sequence that’s so gonzo I really can’t imagine anything like it making it to screen these days. The 90s rock soundtrack that’s worth listening to even if you never watch the movie. The scene where Pam Grier slams a jawbreaker against the metal table in the interrogation room to terrify her teenaged suspect. The fact that the high school is literally named “Reagan High” … Again, I could go on and on.
All in all, take any chance you get to watch “Jawbreaker.” Hopefully its belated 25th birthday is a good enough excuse.
