Smooth Talk

A remarkably fine film about the muddle of emotions that separates the child from the adult. Read full review

The shiveringly memorable Smooth Talk may be the first film to get adolescence in America right, down to the last, delicate seismographic tremor. What it knows about the age will scare adults to death, because these film makers remember , as clearly as Joyce Carol Oates did when she wrote the short story from which “Smooth Talk” was made. Read full review

Not just another youth movie, but a deft dramatization of a Joyce Carol Oates story adapted by a couple of documentary filmmakers in their feature debut. Read full review

Throughout, Joyce Chopra patiently and shrewdly observes the contradictions of human behavior that Laura Dern brilliantly conveys. Read full review

The movie is also uncanny in what it does with its last three shots. I watched them, and could not believe so much could be implied so simply. Leave the movie before it's over, and you miss almost everything, because what Connie does at the very end of the film is necessary. It makes "Smooth Talk" the story of the process of life, instead of just a sad episode. Read full review

Nearly everything that is right about Smooth Talk would have been impossible to obtain by conventional Hollywood film- manufacture. The film's appeal, including that of the performances, is in nuance and intermediate shades. That appeal is considerable, another reminder of the possibilities of the American independent film. [9 May 1986, p.43]

Here, as elsewhere, one senses that the images are being asked to carry rather more metaphorical weight than they are able to bear. Read full review

Nearly everything that is right about Smooth Talk would have been impossible to obtain by conventional Hollywood film- manufacture. The film's appeal, including that of the performances, is in nuance and intermediate shades. That appeal is considerable, another reminder of the possibilities of the American independent film. [25 Apr 1986, p.D1]

Some viewers may welcome the drama's lack of resolution as an honest response to the mysteries of adolescence, while others may consider it a moral cop-out. [10 March 1986, p.33]