FIRST LOVE, LAST RITES

Directed by Jesse Peretz '90

Starring Natasha Gregson Wagner and Giovanni Ribisi

Opening today at the Coolidge Corner Theater

Allow me to invite you down to the Louisiana bayou. It's a place where the temperature is so high, the men are often more comfortable walking around without their shirts on than with 'em; a place where the air is so humid, the women will dress in little more than cutoffs and a tank top whether they're sitting around the house or going off to work. As for the atmosphere--well, let's just say that for every one part oxygen, you'll find three or four parts sexual energy. Down here, it's a force that's as visible as the haze that pervades the surrounding swamplands. And you thought that dorm rooms without air conditioning would be the only hot and steamy thing you'd encounter this summer!

This is the bayou of Jesse Peretz '90, director of the new movie First Love, Last Rites. Peretz is probably best known as the former bass guitarist of the band The Lemonheads, and since having left the group, he has achieved a considerable amount of success, directing a number of music videos and commercial spots for MTV as well as a few short films. True, First Love, Last Rites is his first full-length feature, but the movie is by no means a rookie effort. Indeed, the film serves as a vehicle through which Peretz displays the most interesting ability to infuse what could very well have been a tired, rehashed premise with innovative and unique characters. The result is a well-crafted coming-of-age story told with fresh perspective.

Young Joey Milano, played by Giovanni Ribisi, has left his native Brooklyn for what he terms a "vacation" in Louisiana. A rather detached teenage boy with little direction in his life, Joey has shacked up with the alluring Sissel, a seemingly feisty girl whose parents' recent separation makes her feel as though she no longer has a place in the house in which she was raised. Sissel's father, Henry, is fully aware of the fact that she and Joey are "living in sin," but he tacitly approves--in fact, their relationship gives him access to Joey's energy and desire to do something useful. No sooner does Henry suggest that they could be great partners if Joey ever established an eel-trapping business, then Joey spends $50 to purchase materials and start building the traps himself.

Needless to say, Sissel sees her father's manipulative tendencies all over this proposed business scheme, and she emphatically disapproves. But as Joey becomes more and more involved in his work, she draws further away, choosing to take a job at a local sugar factory rather than wait for him at home. Their relationship deteriorates to the point that conversation becomes more painful than meaningless sex, and an inevitably passive confrontation over their situation looms just in the distance.

One of the most alluring features of the movie is the complete character reversal Joey and Sissel appear to undergo as the story progresses, a reversal which is very well effected both by director Peretz and writer David Ryan (who, along with Peretz, adapted the screenplay from a short story written by Ian McEwan). As the movie opens, Joey comes across as naive and impressionable, perhaps even numb to outside sensation. His lack of worldly perspective is as present in his eagerness to embark on a business venture about which he knows nothing as it is in his coy admission to Sissel that she is the first person with whom he has ever slept. Sissel, by contrast, is considerably sharp-witted--acutely aware of emotional pain and other substantial problems resulting from the experience of her parents separation. Yet toward the end of the film, it is Joey who begins to understand the folly of his misguided enthusiasm and lack of direction while at the same time Sissel seems to regress even further away from the mature relationship she once comprehended on a much higher level than her lover. Simply put, the character development is a study in contrast that provides a most satisfying experience for the viewer.

Part of what makes this development so compelling is the very effective performance of Natasha Gregson Wagner as Sissel. She brings a wonderfully devilish aspect to her character when she wishes to warm up to Joey, a quality that is polite and playful at the same time it is slyly calculated. And possibly even better is her withdrawal, acted with a cool removal and detachment from her surroundings that translates both mentally and emotionally. Giovanni Ribisi is good as the young Joey, but probably more so because of Peretz's and Ryan's adaptation of the story than anything else. Great though the character may be presented, Ribisi plays him as more ignorant than innocent, a subtle distinction that in the end postpones the viewers' ability to understand his plight until later on in the movie.

On par with Wagner's excellent performance are some of the visual montages and images interspersed with the dialogue. Depictions of the bayou itself are rich and surprisingly colorful, as is the airstrip where Henry and Joey occasionally meet to discuss their eel-trapping. Dream sequences in which Joey attempts to come to terms both with his new vocation and the "creature" that’s living inside their bedroom wall are filmed in wonderful blues and reds which fade into and out of one another as he traverses the line between sleep and consciousness. Additionally, some of the symbolism inherent to the filming works particularly well. Frequent images of a Fisher Price record player serve as a continual reminder that Joey and Sissel are themselves merely children, prematurely throwing themselves into an adult world. And the reflections on the their window which just barely mask some rather gratuitous full-frontal nudity reinforce the suggestion that even in their purest states, something about these characters will continue to remain concealed. All in all, pains were clearly taken to ensure that the visual component of the movie would be well suited to some of its most important themes.

Jesse Peretz strikes hard with First Love, Last Rites, and for the most part, the impact of his work is felt in all the right places. A story of learning how to live and interact when you realize that you'll never be handed any instruction manual, Peretz endows his characters with the ability to learn and his audience with the ability to understand. This is a movie that really shouldn't be missed--even if the theater isn't air conditioned and you're feeling hotter than the sugar factory workers on a muggy bayou day.