Better Off Dead (1985)
Broken Hearts, Surreal Ski Slopes, and One Very Persistent Paperboy
Lane Meyer (John Cusack) is your typical high-school romantic: deeply in love, utterly devoted and totally devastated when his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss) dumps him for the arrogant ski-team captain, Roy Stalin. Only Lane takes heartbreak to absurd extremes: half-hearted suicide attempts, a dilapidated 1967 Camaro that won’t run, a bizarre family dynamic, and a French exchange student, Monique (Diane Franklin), who might just shift his perspective. Add in a garage-wrecking paperboy who insists Lane owes him two dollars, drag racers whose English is as shaky as their morals, and some oddly poetic stop-motion cheeseburgers, and you’ve got a teen comedy that refuses to play by the rules.
Directed and written by Savage Steve Holland, Better Off Dead blends dark comedy and surreal zaniness with a sweet undercurrent of teenage longing and identity. The humor can be offbeat inhale everyday substances for “drugs,” dreamlike interludes, slapstick disasters but it’s Cusack’s earnestness and the film’s willingness to lean into weirdness that make its oddities memorable. It’s not just about getting over an ex; it’s about learning to take yourself (and your failures) less seriously, embracing what’s strange, and doing what you need to do to get back on the ski slope… literally.
Buy it Now
Genre: Comedy
Director: Savage Steve Holland
Rated: PG
