Remember the Daze

It's Amber Heard week here at the new-look Go-Go-Rama. Heard was the star of the short-lived series The Playboy Club, which, despite my being a reader of Playboy for almost forty years, I didn't watch, which may be why it was canceled. If it couldn't even get the Playboy readers, it was doomed.

Heard is one of the stars of Remember the Daze, a strange and uncomfortable film that was released in 2008. In many ways it's a rip-off of Dazed and Confused, except it's set in 1999 instead of the 1970s. The similarities are legion, starting with the use of the word "Daze" in the title (although I read that the original title was The Beautiful Ordinary. Clearly the title was changed later in order to try to cash in on the earlier film). The film is also, like its predecessor, set entirely in one day, which happens to be the last day of school. There is also a large ensemble cast, which includes Heard and other actresses that merit my interest, such as Lyndsy Fonseca and Leighton Meester.

The film was written and directed by Jess Manafort, and though the film is not very good, it has interesting moments. Mostly, though, I found the film incredibly sad. The kids, whether in high school or just out of middle school, are all obsessed with drugs. There is hardly a moment in this film whether a character isn't drinking alcohol, smoking pot, or eating mushrooms. None of the children pictured show any spark of an interest in anything but partying (except for a vacuous cheerleader character who urges everyone to come to a pep rally). If this was how high school life was in 1999, I'm glad I graduated 20 years earlier.

The film has a shapeless form. Characters don't really have defined arcs. There are girls who are having a secret lesbian relationship, the cheerleader has a boyfriend who treats her like shit, another girl never goes to school and verbally berates her parents (the mother is played by Moira Kelly, who I hadn't seen in a long time). One character, who graduates without ever talking to anyone, wanders around taking photographs. In the hands of someone with a bit more skill, this film might have made an interesting docudrama about high school life, but instead it's a mish-mash--it can't decide whether it's a comedy or not.

I'm also curious about the time setting. The film doesn't seem anchored to 1999 in any way. No current events are mentioned and, doubtless due to budget issues, there are no hits on the soundtrack. If no one had mentioned it was 1999 I would have never known. Frankly, I can't remember anything that was going on in that year, other than the Columbine shooting and the Clinton impeachment trial.