Better Off Dead

Better Off Dead. 1985 CBS Productions & Paramount Pictures (originally Warner Bros. Pictures).
Starring: John Cusack, David Ogden Stiers, Diane Franklin, Curtis Armstrong
Director: Savage Steve Holland
Buy Better Off Dead at Amazon.

Let's get it out of the way right now: "I want my two dollars!"

Taking place in the fictional town of Greendale in the even more fictional state of "Northern California", Lane Meyer (Cusack) is an average high-schooler whose life is destroyed when his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss) leaves him after just six months for the conceited and bullying captain of the high school ski team, Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier). Lane just so happened to be trying out for the team himself.

Devastated, Lane becomes despondent enough to believe that death is the only way out, but he usually only makes half-hearted attempts at suicide, leaving him alive, and in another hilarious jam. His family isn't the most understanding one; his mother (Kim Darby) is a Stepford wife who also happens to be the world's worst cook. Lane's dad (Stiers) is convinced that his oldest son uses drugs, and his brother Badger never speaks, but he has a skill of building laser guns while attracting trashy women. Lane's best friend Charles (Armstrong) frequently inhales everyday substances like whippits or snow, while complaining that he "can't even get real drugs here".

While Lane tries to either kill himself, or win back Beth, he starts getting to know a new girl in the neighborhood, a French foreign exchange student named Monique (Franklin), who is staying with Lane's neighbors, and they are evidentally so annoying that she pretends she cannot speak English. Monique is also a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers (Yeah! Boys of Summer!), and she helps Lane fix his 1967 Camaro while giving him something to live for.

Oh, and we can't neglect the persistant paperboy.

Highly recommended flick. Even though I was in the same situation a few years ago (dumped after six months for someone else who was allegedly superior), fortunately, I still could not identify with Cusack's character, largely because I wasn't in high school when it happened!