Cherish (2002)

Dir. Finn Taylor

Starring Robin Tunney, Tim Blake Nelson, Brad Hunt, Ricardo Gil, Jason Priestley, Liz Phair, Nora Dunn and Lindsay Crouse

Nostalgia for a particular decade can be fun but, ultimately, very annoying. There are only so many rounds of “Hey, ‘member (INSERT DECADE SPECIFIC POP CULTURE REFERENCE)? Those were cool!” that a man can be expected to play. Nostalgia in films is even more annoying because it leads to laziness on the filmmakers’ part. Recall, if you will, The Wedding Singer, a fun Adam Sandler comedy, that wore its 80’s -ness like a cheap Halloween costume. There was no reason, dramatically or otherwise, to set the film in 1985. The setting existed mainly to let Sandler croon some 80’s “classics” and to work in a Boy George joke or two. That I give the film a pass is more a testament to my bad taste than to the film’s quality.

In Cherish, the audience is given a film that plays the 80’s nostalgia card in an honest character-centered manner. The plot concerns a lovely office girl named Zoe who lives for music and is seen as  promiscuous and needy by those around her, including Guyville exile Liz Phair as a bitchy co-worker. Robin Tunney, who was formerly the charisma vacuum of films such as The Craft and End of Days, is well cast as the flighty music lover who seems to crave the aural cheese-food spread that dominated the airwaves during a particularly big -haired decade. The plot proper starts when she has a few too many drinks and seeks to retrieve some items from her car before leaving with Andrew (A very Maxwell Caulfield-y Jason Priestley). Unfortunately, she is forced by a shadowy assailant to drive off which leads to the accidental smashing of a bicycle cop on her windshield. The mystery man, of course, escapes , and Zoe becomes a criminal, abused and hated by the police. Her attorney (Nora Dunn) manages to get her out of jail until her trial, and she is placed on house arrest replete with ankle bracelet and ankle bracelet technician (Tim Blake Nelson). She is forced to move to a lower income neighborhood. With Russian lovers above and an angry dwarf below and nowhere to go, her life takes a quirky turn. Lesson are learned by all, and Zoe will eventually have to get proactive to clear her name.

Looking back on the summary above, I have to rescind my original judgment that the film is thin on plot. It just seems that way, and I think that is quite a testament to the success of this type of film. It is eventful without feeling controlled by plot, and it manages to combine several different genres without letting the seams show. Tunney is the show and, perhaps for the first time in her career, she is worth the admission or rental price. She is an appealingly human character whose quirks seem organic and not just a function of the plot. Her love of 80’s pop is central to the film and its mystery so that it never feels cheap or shoehorned in. She loves this stuff and it makes her world a little brighter, especially when her world has a distance of fifty-seven feet.

Tim Blake Nelson also comes off well as the only man who believes Zoe’s story of a kidnapper. He exudes a charm that he has had to repress in many of his other roles. In fact, in this film, he becomes a viable off-kilter leading man. Ricardo Gil as Max, the seemingly stereotypical angry dwarf, also deserves special mention for avoiding the most obvious pitfalls in a somewhat underwritten role. It’s a shame that his only other “major” film credit is Grunt: The Wrestling Movie. Cherish is an overlooked film that deserves a wider audience. It is an independent film that plays with a big studio premise and wins. It is thoughtful, fun and more than just an exercise in “Let’s Cobble Together a Soundtrack”. With the somewhat dismal state of comedies that are released this time of year, I recommend that you seek this one out and...cherish...it. I should really just go die somewhere.