Valley Girl

Coolidge hasn't made a campy, condescending comedy, but a satiric romance, in which the background gags and caricatures contribute to a sense of significant conflicts and solid emotions. It's irresistible. Read full review

This movie is a little treasure, a funny, sexy, appealing story of a Valley Girl's heartbreaking decision: Should she stick with her boring jock boyfriend, or take a chance on a punk from Hollywood? Read full review

Basing a teen film on Romeo and Juliet? It'd had been done. Replacing a Montague and a Capulet with a San Fernando Valley shopping-mall habitue (Deborah Foreman) and a sensitive Hollywood punk (Nicolas Cage)? Now we're talking. Read full review

This simplified Romeo and Juliet tale was written and performed with such heart and care that it is impossible to dislike. The cast is wonderful, headed by the engaging couple of Cage and Foreman and wittily directed by Coolidge. Read full review

This low-low-budget movie tells its little Romeo and Juliet story without pretension or condescension. In scratching at the surface of youth trends, Valley Girl manages to reveal the perennial innocence of teenage romance. And that, in the wake of such sexist teenage fare as Porky's and Spring Break, is a fresh and sweet achievement. [24 May 1983]

Valley is very good simply because director Martha Coolidge obviously cares about her two lead characters and is privileged to have a couple of fine young performers, Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman, to make the audience care. Read full review

the wooden acting and threadbare plot of the 1983 Romeo And Juliet-meets-The Graduate-meets-MTV love story Valley Girl is almost entirely redeemed by the stung cockiness of Nicolas Cage. Read full review

Coolidge has no axe to grind with Valley Girls. They’re simply teenagers subject to the classic problems of love and peer pressure, albeit spiced with their own distinct valley jargon. Coolidge directs all this with a light hand and the non-stop musical score features music by the Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Clash, Men at Work, Sparks, and many more. Read full review

Since somebody this year was bound to make a movie called Valley Girl, let's be grateful the job fell to director Martha Coolidge, who has a light, satirical touch, and screenwriters Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane, whose modest exploitation movie is thoroughly good-natured. [09 May 1983, p.85]

The characters and their jargon are occasionally amusing, but there's no action, no conflict, no overwhelming satire and nothing to jolt them out of their lethargy. Read full review