Jennifer's Body Review

I hate Juno. Juno is the worst kind of film in that, everyone who has seen it will tell you how good it is, and it’s not good. Not at all. Writer Diablo Cody has a fantastic central idea, a teenager carrying a pregnancy through high school, an idea that could really resonate and go somewhere interesting, especially in these times of Creationism and abstinence. But she absolutely squanders it. The script is immature, there are no consequences to any of Juno’s actions and the whole thing becomes a highly irritating, flippant, kooky love story with a soundtrack of perfectly placed, just released eight minutes ago, indie songs to sledgehammer home every emotionally contrived moment. Cody clearly understands what it’s like to be an American teenager and is able to convincingly sell that world. So it’s no surprise that Jennifer’s Body, Cody’s next produced script, once again portrays the American teenage angst and its natural home, the high school, in a manner that is at once completely convincing and painfully familiar. Jennifer’s Body doesn’t have that great central idea which, in a way, actually works in its favour because there is little to spoil. What it has in abundance is all the irritating stuff. It isn’t even really a horror film, even though it has been marketed as such. It’s a high school film with a demon. And I really don’t like high school films. Can you see where this is going?

Megan Fox is Jennifer, the object of every teenage boy’s hormonally fuelled desire. Mama Mia’s Amanda Seyfried is Needy, her best friend. Out at a bar one night, Jennifer is taken by a struggling band who will do anything to get famous, including sacrificing a virgin to Satan. Except that Jennifer is no virgin and so she ends up inhabited by the demon, feasting on the young boys at the school to stay alive. She is literally a man-eater. Get it? Needy is the only one who knows the truth and it’s up to her to stop the killings that ensue. It’s a neat idea to take the high school archetypes and use them for horror purposes and Cody certainly has a nice way with finding small character moments that ring true. Director Karen Kusama does an okay job and the two girls are both convincing. But it’s not funny, it’s not frightening and once again I found much of Cody’s writing very grating. People have knocked her dialogue for being stylised which is a ridiculous criticism. Dialogue shouldn’t be conversational in my opinion, it should have structure and purpose, like the overall story, and many writers, including two of my favourites, the Coen Brothers and David Mamet, write highly stylised dialogue. The question is how one responds to that style. That response is of course always subjective but, for me, I find Cody’s characters very annoying. “You’re so jello. You’re lime green jello and you can’t admit it to yourself.” Lines like this come thick and fast and make me want to tear my hair out, I don’t care how authentic they are to American teen-speak. It’s the Quentin Tarantino school of writing, where every character talks in hip, “quotable” but ultimately inane sound bites. And just because the lead singer of the band remarks that the only way to get noticed is to appear on a “crap soundtrack”, referencing the problem I mentioned about Juno, doesn’t mean you’re negating that problem. Moreover, in jokes are cheap and unfunny and Cody is guilty of employing them.

I realise this review has become a bit of a tirade against Diablo Cody but she is one of the few writers who, so far at least, manages to be highly visible in the finished film. And good for her. Such a feat is rare for a Hollywood writer. I have nothing against her personally and she can clearly structure a script and tell a story. But it’s style over substance and if that comes from Diablo Cody or Michael Bay or anyone else, it’s problematic. There is a current backlash against Cody, part of the reason for the film’s poor show at the box office Stateside. Again, I want to be as fair as I can be, and this backlash is unjustified and unfair. The people tearing her down now are the same ones that lauded her when Juno first appeared and their objections are pretty much worthless as a result. At least I’m consistent. I hated Juno from the start and I hate Jennifer’s Body now too. I was bored, irritated and if I hadn’t been writing this review I’d have left half way through. Diablo Cody does her thing and I guess that’s great for her and for whoever is interested. It’s not for me.

2/10