CRUSH (2013)

Studio:       Millennium Films
Director:    Malik Bader
Writer:       Sonny Mallhi
Producer:  Trevor Macy, Mark D. Evans
Stars:     Lucas Till, Crystal Reed, Sarah Bolger, Caitriona Balfe, Reid Ewing, Holt McCallany, Camille Guaty, Leigh Whannell

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A high school soccer star’s life is turned upside down when the affections of a secret admirer turn dangerous. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

A little girl and a little boy sit on a rooftop. The little boy reveals that he kissed a girl named Emily. The little girl grows jealous and pushes the boy off the roof.

Scott Norris is a high school soccer star and the object of outcast girl Bess’ attraction. Scott hurts his knee during a game, but he goes on to score the winning goal. At a party afterwards, Bess sees Scott kissing a girl named Jules. Scott races a teammate on the street and ends up injuring his knee again.

Scott eventually recovers, but his father wants him to take it easy on the excessive running, as it has only been six months since the surgery. At school, Scott finds a card in his locker from a secret admirer asking to meet. Scott draws something on a paper his teacher hands back and then he throws it in the trash. Bess recovers the paper from the garbage can. A boy named Jeffrey follows Bess home, as he has a crush on her.

While running, Scott runs into Andie, Bess’ coworker, outside of the record store where Bess works. David is another coworker. David flirts with Andie. Andie sees Bess looking at a website called “Notes to Crushes.” Andie reveals that she also used to be obsessive about her crushes, particularly Brian Salverson. Andie notices Jeffrey outside and mentions him to Bess.

Bess uses a phone app called “Shadow Me” to track Scott and watches him practice at the soccer field. Jules meets Scott at his place, but he stops their makeout session. She takes a topless picture of herself on his phone to show him what he is missing. Scott says he just needs her as a friend right now and does not want to screw it up. Someone follows Jules home. Jeffrey also follows Bess home. He asks where her family is and she says they are travel writers. She tries to fend off his advances, but he insists on giving her a flash drive with a music mix. Using Andie’s advice, Bess examines Jules’ Facebook page to see how Jules dresses.

A hand grabs from under the bleachers and trips Scott’s rival teammate while he runs the stairs. Wearing an outfit similar to Jules’, Bess waits at the pool location from the secret admirer card, but Scott does not show up. She burns the clothes afterwards.

Scott asks his father to go see their favorite movie, “His Girl Friday,” but his father says he cannot go. While jogging, Scott runs into Bess and they become introduced by sharing their iPod music with each other. Scott posts his movie plans on Facebook. Bess fantasizes about meeting Scott at “His Girl Friday” and holding hands in the theater. In reality, Jules meets Scott at the movie, but he spurns her attempt to hold hands. Bess listens to the song she heard on Scott’s iPod. Someone sneaks into Scott’s room while he is out and later touches him while he sleeps.

Jeffrey shows up at the record store and Andie insists that Bess have lunch with him. They go to the woods, but Bess shoves him when he tries to kiss her. Jeffrey says that everyone but him thinks she is a freak, including Scott Norris. Jules finds paint on her window that says, “he’s mine.” Scott jokes about it, even wondering aloud if Jules did it herself. She angrily asks Scott to leave. At a coffee shop, Scott sees former English teacher Miss Brown. She flirts with Scott and gives him her phone number. Bess, Andie, and David sit nearby. As Scott leaves, Bess makes a comment about actually calling Miss Brown and shows Scott the drawing that she took from the trashcan. Scott mentions the secret admirer card and angrily tells Bess to stop. Later, Scott apologizes to Jules.

Bess yells at herself in the mirror. While jogging, someone strikes Miss Brown with a tree branch and kills her. Bess observes as Andie and David kiss in front of the store. Scott confronts his father about telling the coach that Scott should stop training. While swimming, someone steals Scott’s cell phone and mass emails the topless photo of Jules. Jules refuses to hear Scott’s explanation. Scott goes to Bess’ store and screams at her about the photo. Jeffrey is there and he sticks up for Bess. Scott punches him. Scott’s father changes his mind about Scott practicing.

Jules goes to a party. Bess consoles her in the bathroom. Jules drinks too much and lays down on a couch. Someone sneaks into the room and tries smothering Jules with a pillow. Scott arrives and tells Jules that he believes Bess is to blame for everything. While driving, Scott nearly runs over Andie on her bicycle. He insists on taking Andie home when she refuses to go to the hospital for her bleeding leg. At Andie’s house, Scott notices that she has a chessboard exactly like the one in his house. Andie knocks him out, as she is the one who has been stalking Scott. Jeffrey comes to Bess’ house and discovers that she was telling the truth about her parents being travel writers, although he had suspected she killed them. Andie reinjures Scott’s leg and locks him in her basement.

David comes to Andie’s house and she ends up murdering him. Andie gives Scott a sketchbook and tells him that she wants him to draw a picture of her. Eventually, Scott stabs her with a pencil and tries to crawl upstairs. Bess decides to talk to Andie about her crush and goes to Andie’s house. Bess notices blood on the doorstep. She sees Scott crawling on the floor and rushes inside. Andie recovers and slams Bess’ head into the floor. Jeffrey has followed Bess and is able to intervene. Scott kicks Andie down the staircase and locks her inside.

Bess and Jeffrey become romantically involved. Scott makes up with Jules and he decides to apply for art school. Andie is seen in therapy discussing the crushes she has killed in the past.

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Review:

“Crush” is disappointing, but not for lack of trying.  “Crush” features a red herring so audaciously bold that it would be genius if it were not completely unbelievable.  Which is one word that aptly categorizes this movie.  While well staged, well cast, and well photographed, it is entirely unbelievable.

Bess is a social misfit who could rival the prom queen in beauty, yet chooses to hide behind frumpy dresses and the hair she cannot stop nervously twirling.  Even though the two have never spoken one word to each other, Bess has an unhealthy obsession with Scott Norris, the school’s ridiculously popular resident soccer star.  Newspaper clippings and Facebook cyberstalking are only the beginning as Bess’ crush takes a turn towards deadly and bad things start happening to the rivals for Scott’s affection.

And rivals there are aplenty.  Bess is not even close to the only girl with eyes for Scott.  Jules is Scott’s good friend and occasional makeout buddy.  She leaves topless photos on Scott’s phone, but he is more interested in rehabilitating a busted leg so he can play soccer again.  The heartbreak is evident on Karen’s face at a post-game party when he only speaks to her to discover Jules’ whereabouts.  Then there is Andie, the older woman who works with Bess that cannot stop staring with a smile as Scott jogs into the distance.  Even Miss Brown, Scott’s former English teacher, takes advantage of that “former” status by slipping the boy her phone number at a coffee shop.

That so many women are obsessed with Scott is not the issue.  The bigger problem is that it is difficult to understand what makes him obsession-worthy to one person, let alone five.  Granted, I am not a teenage girl, so I am perfectly willing to concede that my assessment here should be taken with a full bag of salt.  Although Scott is shown playing chess with his father and throwing perfectly good pencil sketches in the garbage, the artistic and intelligent sides of Scott are things no one ever sees.  His all-consuming focus on soccer seemingly makes him another sports-obsessed jock in a sea of similar types amongst his peers.  Since it is revealed that Bess has never spoken to Scott, it is a wonder what makes him so fascinating that she would organize her entire life around his.  As the title establishes the film’s premise, suspension of disbelief will allow for one unreasonably obsessed girl, but it is painfully difficult to sign the receipt for everyone to be inexplicably into this guy.

Buying Scott as worthy of a crush is more of a stretch after it is suggested that he might not have a brain in his head, either.  When one rival flame openly flirts with Scott in public, Bess immediately calls him out for it, resulting in Scott’s angry demand for Bess to drop it with the creepy stalker behavior.  Yet when that rival flame dies three scenes later, it never passes through Scott’s heartthrob head that maybe his jealous stalker was involved.

Scott is not the only character to wear blinders when convenient.  Jules pulls back her curtains one morning to find the words “he’s mine” painted on her window.  She eventually learns from Scott that a girl at school has a crush on him and her jealousy likely inspired the paintjob.  However, when a topless photo of Jules is sent from Scott’s phone just seven minutes of screen time later, Jules’ first assumption is that her friend Scott must be responsible.  Because surely that type of behavior would be beneath the jealous girl psycho enough to paint veiled threats on bedroom windows.

“Crush” teases interesting threads, such as the introduction of Jeffrey, Bess’ own personal not-so-secret admirer who rivals her for eerie displays of affection.  Giving the stalker a stalker is an interesting twist, but the development of that relationship is not as intriguing as its premise.  Jeffrey’s ultimate purpose is far less satisfying than being a true challenge in the psychotic behavior department.

Other ideas that “Crush” flirts with are even less developed.  The script forces a relationship between Scott and his father in a manner that rivals Bess forcing a relationship with Scott.  When Coach tells Scott that his father forbids him from practicing, Scott gives his father an earful.  Four and a half minutes later, Dad tells son to talk to his coach, as it turns out Scott’s tantrum worked.  Scott composes a heartfelt text to his father and the whole drama is resolved in less time than it takes Bess to Photoshop herself into a picture with Scott.

“Crush” has been alluded to as “Fatal Attraction” for teenagers.  It should be noted that I am a 37-year-old male, and not the target demographic for this PG-13 thriller.  While I would like to believe that younger does not equate to more tolerant of unrealistic and less demanding of smarter story development, it might very well be that the high school set will find plenty to like here.  The young cast is attractive, the production is well put together, and the twist, however absurd, might be genuinely shocking and entertaining to some.  But this is a movie about a crush.  And buying into the thin motivations behind this obsession requires a level of crazy reserved exclusively for the characters in this movie.

Review Score:  45

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