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Jawbreaker
By Brian Costello,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Violent, dark '90s teen comedy with unrelenting cursing.
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Jawbreaker
Community Reviews
Based on 2 parent reviews
It was actually good. a good nineties movie .
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Dark and violent
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What's the Story?
JAWBREAKER begins the morning of the 17th birthday of universally beloved popular girl Liz Purr. Her three best friends -- Courtney (Rose McGowan), Marcie (Julie Benz), and Julie (Rebecca Gayheart) -- have decided to surprise her. Their surprise consists of dressing up like masked assailants, kidnapping her, and gagging her mouth shut with a jawbreaker, taping her mouth, then throwing her in the trunk of their car. When they open the trunk upon arrival at Liz's favorite diner, they discover that she choked to death from the jawbreaker forced into her mouth by Courtney. Unwilling to report the death to the police and unsure of what else to do, they decide to take Liz back to her room and place her in her bed so that it looks like she has been raped. Later, an awkward unpopular girl named Fern (Judy Greer) has been asked by the principal of Reagan High (Carol Kane) to take Liz's homework to her, since Liz is presumed sick with the flu after Courtney calls in posing as Liz's mother. Upon letting herself into Liz's house, she discovers Liz's dead body, and the three friends gathered around it. Fern tries to flee the scene, but she's caught, and Courtney tells Fern that in exchange for her silence on what she witnessed, Courtney will turn her into a popular girl as beloved as Courtney, Marcie, and Julie. Courtney transforms the awkward Fern into an uber-stylish glamour girl with dyed blonde hair named "Vylette." As Vylette's popularity soars, Julie's plummets, as she is crushed with the guilt of Liz's death and suffers Courtney's wrath as a result. Julie begins dating a drama club student named Zack, and the two observe Courtney's remorseless lying about how Liz died and the great lengths to which she goes to frame an innocent man for the murder. After Vylette is sent crashing back to nerd-Earth as Fern when Courtney is threatened by Vylette's near overtaking of Courtney's Most Popular crown, it's up to Julie, Fern, and Zack to find a way to stop Courtney, and to show the entire school that Courtney is both a murderer and a completely horrible human being all around.
Is It Any Good?
This is the nihilistic stepsister of Heathers and Mean Girls. Sadly, it doesn't say anything much different than the former (merely sacrificing timeless satire for smug cynicism), and the quality of the writing isn't at the level of the latter. A commercial dud that was critically panned upon its initial release, Jawbreaker has emerged as a cult favorite. Perhaps the positives of the movie -- the fashion sense, the iconic scene of the four popular girls strutting down the high school hallway in slow motion, The Donnas rocking the prom, the '90s sensibility permeating it, and the sheer evil Rose McGowan brings to her truly horrible character -- deserve to be appreciated decades later. And yet, there's so much that's slapdash and lazy, smug and glib, that an argument could also be made that it belongs in the trash heap of '90s history alongside Right Said Fred and Blockbuster Video.
The ending is deeply unsatisfying. For a movie with so much larger-than-life exaggeration, a conveniently arrived MacGuffin and a tame, questionable revenge plot is a deflating letdown. It's a laziness that reveals the cracks in the rest of the movie. The dark comedy is at everyone's expense, even those who don't deserve it. Simply making a joke at the expense of anorexics, for instance, doesn't make it "dark comedy," especially if it isn't funny and just comes across as pointlessly mean. This kind of mean-spiritedness dilutes the comedy that might drive the point of the movie, assuming there's one beyond "no one really has friends in high school and everyone is a willing participant in the caste system of American adolescence." And having teen characters throw as many F-bombs as the middle-aged Mafioso in Goodfellas might be "edgy" to some, but the word eventually loses its humor and shock value, and comes across as desperate.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about dark comedies like Jawbreaker. What are some of the elements that make a comedy "dark"?
This movie shows characters making jokes at the expense of lesbians, as well as anorexics. Is the intent to make fun of the characters who are this callous, or the targets of their ire, or is it hard to tell?
What are some of the ways that the lead antagonist, played by Rose McGowan, inspires hatred and dislike in the audience, to the point where viewers can't help but root against her?
Movie Details
- In theaters: February 19, 1999
- On DVD or streaming: December 7, 2010
- Cast: Rose McGowan , Rebecca Gayheart , Julie Benz
- Director: Darren Stein
- Inclusion Information: Female actors
- Studio: Image Entertainment
- Genre: Comedy
- Topics: History
- Run time: 87 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: Sexuality, language and violence, all involving teens.
- Last updated: April 2, 2023
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