Susan Granger’s review of “Stateside” (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Based on a true story by Connecticut writer/director Reverge Anselmo and filmed at his family’s palatial estate in Greenwich, this wannabe romantic comedy wallows in the reckless abuse of the privileges of wealth as two desperately rebellious teenagers fall in love. Set in the early ’80s, the story begins as a spoiled rich kid, Mark Deloach (Jonathan Tucker), releases his teenage angst by drinking, driving and crashing his sports car, leaving a promiscuous classmate Sue (Agnes Bruckner) minus her front teeth and his parish priest (Ed Begley Jr.) paralyzed. Mark avoids prison by joining the Marine Corps in a deal arranged by his father (Joe Mantegna), while Sue’s angry mother (Carrie Fisher) ships her off to a mental hospital, where she befriends Dori (Rachael Leigh Cook), a disturbed actress/musician. While on leave from Parris Island basic training, Mark falls for Dori, helping her escape from care at a halfway house. Mental illness within a romantic relationship is the central theme, but Reverge Anselmo never develops a dramatic arc for this self-absorbed, unsympathetic couple. In “A Beautiful Mind,” the onset of the hero’s intensifying symptoms were an integral part of the character study; here, Dory’s schizophrenia is immediately apparent. While the title refers to military slang for the loved ones left back home, Mark’s military service in Beirut, Lebanon – a potentially interesting period – is reduced to stock action shots and voice-overs. The dialogue is prosaic: Mark’s drill sergeant (Val Kilmer) bellows: “You are here because you could not be trained to become men by the mothers of America.” And the erratic editing is awkward. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Stateside” flounders in with a flimsy 4. It’s an unsatisfying cinematic interlude.
