Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - Perfect

There is a key scene about 40 minutes into PERFECT that, I think, must be the only reason this movie is remembered today, if, indeed it is remembered at all. It features John Travolta working out in an aerobics class led by Jamie Lee Curtis. Together the two of them sweat, thrust their pelvises, and hump the air aggressively, all the while staring into each others' eyes, which, awkwardly, turns out to be straight into the camera. The scene lasts almost 5 minutes.

They both look crazy for opposite reasons. Curtis looks crazy because her character, the aerobics instructor, seems to take this so seriously. She's kind of like Patrick Swayze as the bouncer in ROAD HOUSE. She has taken a rather mundane day job and approaches it as if she is dealing with important, life and death world affairs. She works out as if she'd leading a boot camp. I suppose many aerobics instructors may be like this, I don't know -- my waistline should make it clear that I do not hang out in health clubs. Point is, it's ridiculous.

Travolta, on the other hand, has a goofy grin on his face the whole time. It looks like he thinks this new-fangled aerobics thing (or, "slimnastics" as we're informed, a term which is never, ever used in real life) is the most fun he's had since Saturday morning cartoons. Now, you and I, the viewer, know this is John Travolta, the star of GREASE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. We know the man can dance, so while it's not very fun to watch him thrust in short shorts with a visibly bulging package swinging dangerously free, we at least know he's at ease doing these things.

But if you take the movie on its own terms, you're supposed to believe Travolta is a reporter for Rolling Stone who has uncovered a scandal involving a cocaine smuggling business tycoon who claims high ups in the U.S. government are behind drug trafficking. He's convincing enough in his scenes, and I guess it's not impossible such a guy would take to aerobics with a child-like vim and vigor, but come on. Wouldn't the scene be more interesting if he was bad at aerobics, or took a while to get the hang of it, or couldn't keep up, or looked confused, or looked embarrassed, or anything other than completely at ease?

You might be wondering why hard-hitting reporter Travolta is even in an aerobics class at all. Well, after busting the cocaine scam wide open, his next big story idea is to expose the new singles clubs of the 80s -- the gym. It's hard to imagine, looking back on 1985 from 2012, that there was a time when it was shocking and new for giant workout emporiums like 24 Hour Fitness to exist. But, there was a time, apparently, when hungry journalists went from exposing government corruption directly to exposing gyms as. . . I dunno. . . places people meet each other?

Early on Travolta zeroes in on Curtis as the star for his story, but she's resistant due to a bad run-in she had with "gotcha journalism" (as Sarah Palin would say) earlier in her previous career as an Olympic hopeful swimmer. As he attempts to court her for his story, he ends up instead courting her for romance, and soon their personal entanglements add another hurdle to the story. Ethically, Travolta refuses to mix business with pleasure, so he's forced to look elsewhere for his sources and to tread lightly writing a Curtis-approved story, instead of the sex filled expose Rolling Stone wants.

The supporting cast includes a few familiar faces and names, including Marilu Henner and Laraine Newman as a couple of gym groupies looking for men, and Jann Wenner, infamous editor of Rolling Stone, playing a fictionalized version of himself. Newman is particularly effective in an almost heart breaking performance as a woman who is driven to great lengths to make herself "perfect" -- if this story line had been developed and expanded upon, and some other threads dropped, we might have had a movie. Wenner, on the other hand, was clearly not meant to be in front of the camera.

PERFECT suffers from the same problems as many other films that attempt to find the "next big thing" to exploit -- the creators are obviously close enough to the subject that they know something, but far enough away from it that everything rings false. Again, I don't know, this movie could be spot-on -- for all I know, this could be exactly what the aerobics scene was in L.A. in the mid-80s. Even if that's the case, it still rings false. It's just like all those stories I read by other students when I was in college that seemed fake. "But it really happened!" they'd always protest. So, make it seem real.

I guess the problem may stem from the misguided instinct to make everything seem important. It's as if the writers don't think it's enough to have this be a slice of life among gym junkies. They have to approach it as if the gym junkies, the audience watching the film, and the writers themselves, honestly think all this is the most important stuff ever. So, of course, the audience leaves thinking, "What's the big deal?"

What's worse is the fact that this movie has two plots that seem to undermine each other -- the government drug cover up and the aerobics scene. Of course on an objective scale you'd have to admit the government drug cover up is actually the more important of the two stories. Travolta's choices involving journalistic ethics and personal integrity could lead to great personal sacrifices, including jail time or even endangering his own life. But, the movie wants us to believe all of this is just as important as Travolta's influence on a small circle of friends and acquaintances at a gym.

Now, I guess you could argue on an individual scale, a person's close relationships are just as important to him or her as his relationship with the world at large. Still, in a (basically) fictional film, it doesn't make for great drama to compare and contrast one more dramatic story with one less dramatic story and expect the audience to give both stories the same weight. In fact, based on the way the movie is put together, it's almost as if the movie wants you to think the aerobics story is more important than the government cover up one.

There is possibly a fun little snapshot of a place and time in this movie, waiting to get out. Travolta and Curtis are likable, even though their characters aren't, particularly, and some of the stuff about the societal implications of what the fitness craze stands for is thought provoking and emotionally involving. But this is all so buried within the needlessly over-written screenplay that it becomes a chore to watch.

In a final "Fuck you!" to the viewer, after sitting through two hours of this, the ineptitude of the filmmakers reaches its climax when we're deprived any real emotional denouement between the characters we've been asked to care about the whole time. Oh, the denouement happens. It's just offscreen. Like all the other potentially interesting stuff in this flick.

Sadie Says:

For those of you who have known me a while, you know that I have a weird obsession with PERFECT. Paul picked up on it right off the bat. The dance scene alone is worth a watch, along with the snapshot of a time and a place. To be noted, are the many leotards and 80s outfits that make their way into this film. What happened to the high rise leotard? The male sweat short short?

The plot is ridiculous, the story is completely unsatisfying, and it really makes no sense. What DOES make sense is the dancing, the sheer absurdity of it all, and the fact that you can appreciate these stars trying to make it in show biz.

This is the part of my response where I get to say how wonderful Paul is for giving this movie a serious critique. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever been able to take the time to analyze this novelty film and get someone as awesome as Paul to take the time to do it. I love Paul for so many reasons, and one of them is letting PERFECT make it into Romancefest.