Underplayed Gems

Jawbreaker (1999)

Jawbreaker poster
Directed by
Darren Stein
Genre
comedy drama, crime film, teen film
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 27m
Rated
R
Rating
6.4 of 10 from 594 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

A clique of popular high school girls accidentally kills their friend during a prank and stages a cover-up. They force an outsider to take the dead girl's place in their group, which leads to jealousy and conflict.

sarcasticcampytensedarkly comicglossymean-spiritedmanipulativesatirical

What happens

Jawbreaker is a 1999 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Darren Stein. Starring Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart, Julie Benz, Judy Greer, Chad Christ, Ethan Erickson, Carol Kane, and Pam Grier, the film follows the "Flawless Four", the most popular girls at Reagan High School, who cover up the killing of fellow member Elizabeth "Liz" Purr after a kidnapping prank on her 17th birthday goes awry. When Fern Mayo (Greer) encounters the trio staging a crime scene with her body, Courtney Shayne (McGowan) and Marcie "Foxy" Fox (Benz) blackmail her into joining them, causing Julie Freeman (Gayheart) to question her place within the clique. Stein initially conceived Jawbreaker as a horror film, but the screenplay instead developed as a teen film with elements of dark comedy, drawing inspiration from Carrie (1976) and Heathers (1988), as well as the films of John Hughes. Stein explained his concept for the film as, "The jawbreaker just came to represent the duality of the poppy sweetness of the girls, of high school and of youth, versus the whole idea that this thing could break your jaw." Principal photography began in Los Angeles on January 18, 1998, and concluded on March 10. Jawbreaker premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 1999, and was theatrically released by TriStar Pictures in the United States on February 19, 1999. The film received negative reviews from critics and was a box office failure, grossing $3.1 million against its $3.5 million production budget. Despite this, McGowan was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards. Initially panned as derivative of other teen films, the film became a cult classic in the years since its release, with McGowan's performance and the costumes in particular earning reappraisal. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.