That Night is a 1992 romantic drama film written and directed by Craig Bolotin, and starring C. Thomas Howell and Juliette Lewis. It is based on the novel of the same name by Alice McDermott.[1]
This film is notable for the fact that both Eliza Dushku (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) and Katherine Heigl (of Grey's Anatomy fame) made their first film appearances here, sharing a few scenes. Dushku was 11 years old at that time, and Heigl was 13.
Plot
In 1961 Long Island Alice is just that bit younger than her playmates. She doesn't quite understand yet about some grownup things and is teased a lot. Her heroine is anyway Sheryl, the teenager over the road who has a succession of boyfriends. Alice even copies her perfume and favourite records, though she has never spoken to her. When Sheryl's father dies suddenly and she takes up with Rick, who is viewed with horror by all the parents around, she and Alice become firm friends as they try to keep the romance going.
Alice (Eliza Dushku) is a ten-year-old girl that is trying to understand how love works. She is infatuated by the girl across the street, 17-year old Sheryl O' Connor (Juliette Lewis). She often looks at her from across the street, as their bedroom windows are level with each other. Alice starts to copy every detail about Sheryl, including her perfume and the record she listens to. As Alice and her mother pick up her father from work, she notices Sheryl speeding up to the train station to pick up her own father. She then tells her mother about how amazing Sheryl is: about how she could travel long distances in her car in no time at all, how she was slapped in the face by one of her Catholic School teachers and never cried, and how she ran the mile in gym and never broke a sweat. Alice's mother does not believe what she is saying.
One day she decides to go bowling with some of her friends and is ridiculed by them when she rolls a ball into the lane next to hers, and her friends award her with a score of "minus zero" and calling her a dufus. Reeling from comments made to her, she immediately becomes excited when Sheryl walks into the bowling alley along with a group of guys trying to win her affection. Sheryl, seemingly innocent and moral, rejects their advances. She rings the bell at the front desk, and from under the counter a boy named Rick (C. Thomas Howell) appears. They are instantly attracted to each other. As Alice continues to bowl with her friends, she constantly watches Sheryl's every move. Her friends then mention that they think Sheryl's breasts are fake, because they do not move. Alice insists they are real, so they make her walk over to Sheryl to ask her. But before she can get there, Rick pages her to come back to the desk, and a police officer tells her that her father just passed away.
During the funeral, Sheryl is obviously upset. As she is sitting in the bathroom, she notices her bowling shoes on the floor and goes to the bowling alley to return them. There she finds Rick repairing one of the pin returns. He tells her they are closed, and she starts crying over her father. After some conversation, Rick walks Sheryl home, and leads to their first kiss. This is observed by Alice, who earlier had spotten Sheryl running to go to the bowling alley. The next day Rick comes back with his gang, and take Sheryl to the beach, where they have oysters and tequilla and Sheryl pours her heart out over her father's death. They spend the whole day and whole night together.
She leads a three-person cheering section as the teenager, named Sheryl, falls in love and has forbidden liaisons with a young man from the bowling alley. Eventually, Alice becomes instrumental, in spite of her parents' alarm, in helping the two lovers to resolve the difficulties of their relationship and run away together. In the process Alice herself becomes more mature.
Cast
References
- ^ Alice McDermott - biography, plus book reviews & excerpts
External links
