Risky BusinessNo one ever discovered who they were by playing it safe. With his parents on vacation for a week, Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise) struggles with his sexual frustration and ultimately hires an escort named Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) for an outcall to his home in the suburbs of Chicago. Before Joel can pay Lana for her company, she steals his mother's prized crystal egg, forcing Joel to chase her into the city to reclaim it. After Lana solicits Joel for sanctuary from her hot-headed "manager", Guido (Joe Pantoliano), the two form an alliance where the boundaries between romance and business are indeterminate.
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Written and directed by Paul Brickman, Risky Business is a coming of age story and romance that sometimes feels more like a dream than reality. Joel's preexisting outlook on life is shattered and rebuilt; it is as though he were coming out of a long slumber, awakening to the worldliness that comes from shedding the last vestiges of childhood, and the score by Tangerine Dream adds to the hazy, dreamlike atmosphere of the film as well. Risky Business has two crucial dream sequences that depict Joel's confused and adolescent emotional conflict between his sexual maturation and an ingrained mindset of subservience and his desire to please those in authority. Joel is a good boy; dressed in his preppy collared shirt and pullover sweater with khakis, he is a parent's wet dream. Consequently, Joel's own wet dreams are always on a kind of leash that keeps him from reaching fulfillment. In the opening scene to Risky Business, Joel delivers a monologue about an erotic dream he had, where he approaches a strange, naked woman in a shower, only to find himself in a testing hall, too late to perform adequately on his admissions exam. Later, he has a nightmare where his coitus with a sexy babysitter--on a table strewn with tinker toys, no less--is interrupted by the SWAT team and his parents, demanding that he cease his sexual escapades as though Joel were taking her hostage. These dreams both encapsulate the anxieties that afflict teenage boys who are conditioned to always make their guardians happy, despite their physiological and psychological urges for sex; this makes Joel a sympathetic hero for young men like him who have struggled to straddle that line. Joel is such a clean-cut and well-mannered young man, that when he chides his friends that they should be thinking about how they could "better the world" instead of comparing future careers and the respective salaries, it isn't immediately apparent that he's joking. Even Joel's idea of "cutting loose" when his parents are gone--his famous dance to "Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger--feels overwhelmingly safe...in other words, not really cutting loose at all. (Heck, even Joel's last name is "Good Son".) Joel's parents are control freaks who ever so subtly cut into him with feelings of inadequacy, be it when his father (Nicholas Pryor) who passive-aggressively insinuates that there's something wrong with the equalizers on his stereo system--a result of Joel "messing" with it--or when his mother (Janet Carroll) hears of his SAT scores, and inquires if he can "take them again". Joel's world is one of money, but it is a sheltered--even smothering--one, where any act of rebellion by him or his friends is superficial at best. Joel's friend, Miles (Curtis Armstrong), pranks him by inviting a somewhat masculine "lady of the night" named Jackie (Bruce A. Young) to show up at Joel's doorstep "for a good time in the privacy of his own home". In response, Jackie offers the nebbish Joel Lana's phone number, knowing that she's what he really wants; Joel's decision to call Lana is the first real adult action he's ever taken. It's so terrifying for him, in fact, that as he calls her on the phone after a fitful and futile attempt at sleep, curled up in his briefs on the floor while the decoration in his window throbs a red neon glow, he pulls a catcher's mask down over his face as though it would shield him from the fastball pitch life is sending him. He gives Lana a pseudonym of "Ralph", terrified of being incriminated for doing something he's not supposed to do--independence by any other name.
Lana represents everything that Joel wants, even if he doesn't know he wants it yet. When she arrives one windy evening at his house, she lets herself in the back door, and asks him if he's "ready for her". Joel doesn't answer, because the answer is irrelevant; action matters, and her presence seduces him into accepting his desire, shedding his virginity. But Joel could still walk away from this first taste of the "dark side"; it is a vacation more than a profound life experience. Joel is still the same submissive child the next morning as he feebly tries to convince Lana that he will pay her by cashing a savings bond; taking the crystal egg as collateral turns out to be the best thing for Joel, because it forces him further along in his odyssey of self-discovery. His encounter with Guido pushes him to explore how bold he is willing to be, outracing the pimp in his father's Porsche, daring to pursue excellence on his own terms for the first time. At school, Joel half-heartedly pursues a student entrepreneur club with his friend, Barry (Bronson Pinchot), but Joel doesn't know a thing about business. It is Lana who teaches him everything he could ever want to know about free enterprise, her acumen honed through experience as a member of the "world's oldest profession". Lana approaches life from the point of view of a sharp-minded entrepreneur, emphasized in her behavior, poise, and savvy--qualities that impress Joel and rub off on him with time. Lana spends the week with Joel and suggests that he could make a lot of money by turning his house into a makeshift bordello for her and her friends, an offer which becomes an inevitability after an incident with his dad's sports car. Joel feels the illusion of his structured life slipping away--he misses some midterms and gets suspended from school--and ultimately turns to Lana for guidance; he is putty in her hands. She becomes his "girlfriend" for a time, taking to dressing up in his school jacket and going out with him for ice cream, like a perfect fantasy girlfriend would do. Lana is a fascinating character whose true motives are always suspect. For an audience who sympathizes with Joel, she is an alluring siren who always seems innocent of any of Joel's suffering; on the contrary, she presents herself as a liberator, breaking the shackles of Joel's rigid, perfection-chasing existence. Is Lana exploiting Joel? Yes. Is Joel enjoying it? Also yes. The relationship between Joel and Lana represents something primal, one that cuts through the absurdity of the over-complicated modern mating ritual by exposing it for what it really is--a transaction. Joel insinuates this when he adopts the guise of a makeshift pimp, wearing Lana's wraparound sunglasses and smoking a cigarette as he solicits business for an all-out party at his home between Lana's "friends" and his "friends". He draws in business by comparing how much his customers have paid for dates with girls, and what kind of return it got them in the end. He cuts to the chase about the product he's selling, and subsequently discovers the real secret of business: fulfilling a need. Lana does this for Joel, and Joel learns something he couldn't have in school.
Recommended for: Fans of a coming-of-age story that underscores the importance of finding your own values for yourself while stepping out from the shadow of empty obedience--a crucial step in becoming an adult. Risky Business walks a tightrope between a high school comedy and erotic drama, and was the film that propelled Tom Cruise to acclaim as an actor.
Lana represents everything that Joel wants, even if he doesn't know he wants it yet. When she arrives one windy evening at his house, she lets herself in the back door, and asks him if he's "ready for her". Joel doesn't answer, because the answer is irrelevant; action matters, and her presence seduces him into accepting his desire, shedding his virginity. But Joel could still walk away from this first taste of the "dark side"; it is a vacation more than a profound life experience. Joel is still the same submissive child the next morning as he feebly tries to convince Lana that he will pay her by cashing a savings bond; taking the crystal egg as collateral turns out to be the best thing for Joel, because it forces him further along in his odyssey of self-discovery. His encounter with Guido pushes him to explore how bold he is willing to be, outracing the pimp in his father's Porsche, daring to pursue excellence on his own terms for the first time. At school, Joel half-heartedly pursues a student entrepreneur club with his friend, Barry (Bronson Pinchot), but Joel doesn't know a thing about business. It is Lana who teaches him everything he could ever want to know about free enterprise, her acumen honed through experience as a member of the "world's oldest profession". Lana approaches life from the point of view of a sharp-minded entrepreneur, emphasized in her behavior, poise, and savvy--qualities that impress Joel and rub off on him with time. Lana spends the week with Joel and suggests that he could make a lot of money by turning his house into a makeshift bordello for her and her friends, an offer which becomes an inevitability after an incident with his dad's sports car. Joel feels the illusion of his structured life slipping away--he misses some midterms and gets suspended from school--and ultimately turns to Lana for guidance; he is putty in her hands. She becomes his "girlfriend" for a time, taking to dressing up in his school jacket and going out with him for ice cream, like a perfect fantasy girlfriend would do. Lana is a fascinating character whose true motives are always suspect. For an audience who sympathizes with Joel, she is an alluring siren who always seems innocent of any of Joel's suffering; on the contrary, she presents herself as a liberator, breaking the shackles of Joel's rigid, perfection-chasing existence. Is Lana exploiting Joel? Yes. Is Joel enjoying it? Also yes. The relationship between Joel and Lana represents something primal, one that cuts through the absurdity of the over-complicated modern mating ritual by exposing it for what it really is--a transaction. Joel insinuates this when he adopts the guise of a makeshift pimp, wearing Lana's wraparound sunglasses and smoking a cigarette as he solicits business for an all-out party at his home between Lana's "friends" and his "friends". He draws in business by comparing how much his customers have paid for dates with girls, and what kind of return it got them in the end. He cuts to the chase about the product he's selling, and subsequently discovers the real secret of business: fulfilling a need. Lana does this for Joel, and Joel learns something he couldn't have in school.
Recommended for: Fans of a coming-of-age story that underscores the importance of finding your own values for yourself while stepping out from the shadow of empty obedience--a crucial step in becoming an adult. Risky Business walks a tightrope between a high school comedy and erotic drama, and was the film that propelled Tom Cruise to acclaim as an actor.