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Blast From The Past: Jennifer’s Body Review
Image Credit: 20th Century Studios
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For the past several weeks, I have really wanted to watch Jennifer’s Body. I kept seeing it referenced either on social media or in pop culture, and I knew it was time I gave it a shot to see what I thought of it.
Well a few weeks back I checked through all of my streaming services, and I could not find it playing free anywhere. It wasn’t quite worth a rental to me at the time, though. So my desire to watch this just kind of sat in the back of my mind. And festered.
Then tonight, wanting to watch a movie, I briefly considered renting it. But I still decided against it and opted instead to look on Paramount Plus to see if they had any good movies added recently.
And guess what they had uploaded!
So here was my chance to see if all the random good will I had heard tossed at this movie in recent memory was worth it. All I had to do was wait a while.
Jennifer’s Body is the story of Anita (often called “Needy” as a nickname) and her lifelong best friend Jennifer. The two are seemingly distinct opposites–Jennifer is a cheerleader and a high school beauty; Needy is more of a plain jane and a bit nerdy–but they make their friendship work.
Early into the film, Jennifer pressures Needy into going to a local dive bar to check out a band called Low Shoulder. At the event, a fire breaks out, burning the establishment to the ground. Needy and Jennifer escape unscathed, but Jennifer is dazed by the fire and allows herself to be talked into getting in the band’s van and driving off with them.
Later that night, Jennifer, covered in blood, shows up at Needy’s house, and she has clearly changed from the experience. But it will take several weeks until Needy figures out just how much her BFF has been altered.
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS
+ Leading the way here are Amanda Seyfried as Anita/Needy and Megan Fox as Jennifer. They really carry this movie and make everything work. Seyfried in particular is a star here who owns this movie and has the charisma to make everything she does believable. And while Fox is given a little less to do, the movie perfectly complements her strengths. And that is more than “looking hot”; she is subtle and horrifying here. It all works.
In addition to Seyfried and Fox, the cast is star-studded all over the place. Hell, the movie’s penultimate scene is a Lance Henriksen cameo out of nowhere. But before that, you’ve got Kyle Gallner and Adam Brody is secondary roles and making the most of all of their screen time. And in even smaller roles, you can see J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris adding some gravitas to the film.
The casting director on this one really earns my kudos for bringing in a powerful cast who sell every moment of the flick.
+ From top to bottom, Jennifer’s Body is a lot of fun. It starts off with a frenzied and imprisoned Needy, and then it reverses course and shows you how she got there. We then get the story of Needy and Jennifer’s friendship, Needy’s relationship to her boyfriend Chip, and how Jennifer gets possessed by the demon that takes over her body.
The combination of the screenplay and the direction really maximize how enjoyable this story is. The characters are lively and entertaining. And the story really captures the sights and sounds of an era. The aesthetic of the days of late-stage emo are all over this picture. If you grew up in that era, this movie should be catnip for you.
– Diablo Cody is the responsible for the script here, so you get the obvious good and bad that comes with that. Don’t get me wrong, there are some moments sprinkled throughout that could elicit a chuckle from you, but there are several other lines that are supposed to come across as witty, but are, instead, groan-worthy. “Do you know what this is for? It’s to cut boxes!”. Sigh.
In addition to that, this is film that came out in 2009, but it still features a lot of use of–and plays on–the R-word and gay slurs. You would just kind of hope that we were past that in 2009. The usages of those slurs isn’t really needed, either. It’s not used to establish some characters as unsavory. It’s playfully spewed by our main characters.
– There are several characters who don’t get much to do. I mentioned earlier that J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris play some of the adult figures in the movie, but neither is given much meat on their bone. Especially Sedaris, who is in two or three short scenes, and that is all. You could really miss that she even is the actress playing Needy’s mom if you aren’t paying attention.
J.K. Simmons has several more lines than she does, but is entirely negligible here. You could write him out of the movie and nothing changes; he has no impact on the resolution at all. He’s just there because Cody had worked with him in the past and most likely wanted to get him back involved if she could.
And then, yeah, there’s that weird Lance Henriksen sighting at the very end. You instantly recognize the man, but it’s so surreal that this is what he is given to do.
