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.jpg) I really wanted to hate “Jennifer’s Body.” Writer Diablo Cody tried all that she could to make me hate this film, but the performance of Amanda Seyfried and staging of director Karyn Kusama won out over Cody’s intermittently annoying dialog to create an enjoyable thriller.
In a way this film feels a lot like Robert Rodriguez’ “The Faculty.” That film was written by Kevin Williamson, another writer who loves pulp culture references and contrasting high school darkness with supernatural darkness. “Jennifer’s Body” feels like a sister film in tone and content.
While Megan Fox’s face may grace the posters, the star of the show is Amanda Seyfried. She plays Needy, a girl who is learning to cope with how different she and her childhood best-friend are now that they are in high school. Needy’s best friend is Fox’s character, Jennifer. The two are friends now only because they’ve been friends for so long; a fact in which Needy is becoming acutely aware. Jennifer and Needy couldn’t be more different. Jennifer is attractive and popular while Needy is dorky, awkward and wears thick glasses.
The girls go to the concert of a band Jennifer found on MySpace. The band is dark and brooding, an attribute that Jennifer likes. When the band finds a way to burn down the venue, Jennifer escapes the mayhem with the band. She shows up at Needy’s house later that night, but something isn’t right with Jennifer. She arrives bloody, vomits up this thick black substance and leaves Needy’s house just as quickly as she arrived.
When strange things begin happening to the town’s boys, Needy knows that Jennifer is connected, but without any proof, only Needy can stop her.
In “Juno,” Diablo Cody’s unique style of dialog was limited to the first several scenes. In “Jennifer’s Body” the dialog is limited to one character; Jennifer. Oh, how I hated every word that came out of Fox’s mouth in this film. Cody’s writing can be cringe-worthy and in this film it’s the words that Jennifer says and how she puts them together that made me want to reach through the screen and strangle the script. Whenever Fox appears in the film, I cringed; not wanting to hear what nonsense she would say next.
For example; in a normal movie, Jennifer would tell Needy “you need to move on.” In Cody’s world, Jennifer says “you need to move on dot org.” If lines like “You need a mani bad. You should find a Chinese chick to buff your situation” sound like a work of fine fiction, you’ll be okay with the film, but if you’re like me, you’ll find Cody’s dialog grating and intentionally drawing attention to itself. There’s slang and then there is Cody slang. Cody slang doesn’t exist in the real world. There is nothing natural about it and it is hard to hear.
Other than that, I liked the film.
Cody creates a fully capable high school thriller, full of personality and humor. Needy is a strong yet accessible character, brought to life wonderfully by Amanda Seyfried. Seyfried’s Needy is the heart and soul of this film. Seyfried creates a character whose strength lies deep within her being and I rooted for her to find it. I also thought the relationship between Needy and her boyfriend Chip, played by Johnny Simmons, was rendered on-screen very well. Their relationship is sweet and accessible.
The film has some very cool imagery and imaginative sequences. Director Karyn Kusama creates a dark environment in which her characters live. One sequence in particular stands out. Kusama flips back and forth between one of Jennifer’s bloody kills and Needy having sex with Chip. The contrast and compare that Kusama makes is pretty entertaining and very funny. Also, the scene in which the lead singer of the band (played by Adam Brody) sacrifices Jennifer to the Devil is well shot and frequently hilarious.
Oh, how I wanted to hate “Jennifer’s Body!” Luckily for us, Cody’s cringe worthy dialog is limited to Fox’s character and she’s actually not in the movie for all that long. If we got any more of that dialog, I’d be 180 degrees in the other direction, but it’s not in there enough to ruin my experience. Seyfried saves this movie and single-handedly makes it an enjoyable experience.
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