Beyond Clueless

Film Review by Jamie Dunn | 23 Jan 2015
Film title: Beyond Clueless
Director: Charlie Lyne
Starring: Fairuza Balk
Release date: 23 Feb
Certificate: 15

Do you ever wish the likes of EuroTrip and The Craft received the same kind of forensic critical scrutiny reserved for canonised classics? Charlie Lyne certainly does. He takes his deep – but often sceptical – admiration for teen movies and pours it into Beyond Clueless, creating a hypnotic hymn to this much maligned genre.

Best known for his irreverent movie blog Ultra Culture, Lyne’s film essay takes the form of a textual analysis of the wide-ranging high-school movies that flooded the market on the coat-tails of Amy Heckerling's eponymous touchstone – but don’t let that put you off. Through witty editing, a mesmerising narration (by smoky-voiced cult teen star Fairuza Balk) and a hair-raising score (provided by indie pop duo Summer Camp), Lyne makes a compelling case that these candy-coloured teenage confections have dark, poisonous cores.

These are films concerned with sexual repression and social conformity: some are insidious blueprints for how to become wholesome, all-American citizens; others rally against such conservatism. The movies chosen for deeper analysis are pleasantly left-field, with forgotten oddities such as Ginger Snaps, Bubble Boy and Disturbing Behaviour rubbing shoulders with genre classics such as Rushmore and Mean Girls – and I defy anyone not to seek out Idle Hand, a seemingly insane horror/comedy/masturbation analogy, after seeing it dissected here. 


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From pop-ups to premieres, our guide to Glasgow Film Festival 2015

Read ouR interview with Beyond Clueless director Charlie Lyne

http://beyondclueless.co.uk