Johnny Depp's journey from 21 Jump Street heart-throb to sunglasses wearing hat with scarves is long and storied. Some say it started with Cry Baby or Edward Scissorhands, the beginning of the endless bro-affair between Depp and his wild haired director paramour, Tim Burton, but those of us in the know, i.e., old with a lot of time on our hands, understand that Depp would always find a way out of any Peter DeLuise-containing prison, from the very time he graced our movie screens in A Nightmare on Elm street, as a thoughtful young man who gets eaten by a bed. We've always had sense of him, as with Brad Pitt, as a very, very good-looking person who feels stymied by his attractiveness, and starts trying out various limps and face putties and outlandish accents, perhaps as a means to make himself more approachable to us, the ugly, weird speaking, limping public. Thus, the early nineties were filled with small strange movies in which he played small, strange characters. And none of these movies were smaller or stranger than Benny and Joon. (Author's note: That was a lie. There were like 90 smaller and stranger films he was in, actually. Try sitting through Arizona Dream without alcohol, for example. Jesus, what did we ever do to you, Faye Dunaway?)
"Hi, it's not for me. This movie just really, really needs help."
So, Benny (Adian Quinn) and Joon (Mary Stewart Masterson) are an adult brother and sister living together because their parents have died in an accident. Also because Joon is Schizophrenic, but we don't actually know that for certain because Benny and Joon is not the sort of movie that says the word "Schizophrenic" out loud. We know that she is "sick" and at times goes into difficult rages when she doesn't take her medicine. Well, shit. Can you guys please be more vague about that? "Sick," "difficult rages" and "medicine" are all terms that apply to me after a Taco Bell run, so we might need a little more info to fully appreciate the deep subject matter of this particular film. No? Oh, it's just Johnny Depp pretending to be caught in a windstorm to the delight of others? Ok, my mistake. Anyway, while Benny is at work, he generally leaves Joon with a housekeeper (untrained, it seems, in dealing with a Schizophrenic person) but Joon has managed to chase them all off with her erratic behavior. And that's a real pain in Benny's ass, apparently. Why can't his mentally ill sister be more like him, he wonders, an unlikable man who spreads his dissatisfaction with his life everywhere he goes like a kind of angry, sighing chlamydia? God, *get it together, Joon.*
In scene which is ABSOLUTELY NOT A PLOT DEVICE AND COMPLETELY BELIEVABLE, We learn that Benny enjoys spending time with a group of guys playing a special poker game, the stakes of which are not money. I know, I know. I thought an orgy, too, but sadly, the fact that there were no orgies was only one of the many ways that Benny and Joon disappointed me. Joon, who was permitted to join the game because wackiness, loses a bet against Benny's good buddy, Mike, and Mike's Cousin Sam (Depp), comes to live with Benny and Joon as Joon's Housekeeper. So, in a third of a movie, we've gone from deeply neglected mental illness to human trafficking, but, man, are these kids cute as the dickens, or what? Did I mention that Sam is illiterate? OMG, you guys, we are exactly one online porn addiction and one Annette O'Toole away from a really kick-ass TV movie.
In scene which is ABSOLUTELY NOT A PLOT DEVICE AND COMPLETELY BELIEVABLE, We learn that Benny enjoys spending time with a group of guys playing a special poker game, the stakes of which are not money. I know, I know. I thought an orgy, too, but sadly, the fact that there were no orgies was only one of the many ways that Benny and Joon disappointed me. Joon, who was permitted to join the game because wackiness, loses a bet against Benny's good buddy, Mike, and Mike's Cousin Sam (Depp), comes to live with Benny and Joon as Joon's Housekeeper. So, in a third of a movie, we've gone from deeply neglected mental illness to human trafficking, but, man, are these kids cute as the dickens, or what? Did I mention that Sam is illiterate? OMG, you guys, we are exactly one online porn addiction and one Annette O'Toole away from a really kick-ass TV movie.
"I totally made this up, you guys. This is totally my bit."
Benny, Joon and Sam visit a local park, where Sam starts doing all these Charlie Chaplin slash Buster Keaton-like crazy tricks with his hat and cane, and pretending to fall and shit, and, inexplicably, people are all about it. Yeah, ok, look, I know people, and with people, there is a very fine line between "that's interesting" and "I don't want to hurt you, but I will." And, nothing makes that fine line finer than a fucking mime. But, even Benny, who hates the world and everything in it, is enchanted by this adorable copyright infringement, and suggests to Sam that he could be more than a criminally unfit caretaker for a Schizophrenic woman. He could move on to bigger and better parks! Eat out of much nicer garbage cans! Don't be a fool, Sam! Don't waste your talent on these common rubes and park squirrels!
But, Sam has other plans, for example, getting down in the biblical sense with Joon while Benny is away pursuing some tired-ass subplot with a waitress played by a pre-EVERYTHING Julianne Moore. Benny keeps on with his pestering Sam about his career, and Joon gets pissed and lets slip the fact that she and Sam are now romantically involved. Benny flips shit and throws Sam out because now he cares very deeply for his sister, not like before when he would just let any guy he won in a poker game be her number one caretaker, not protecting her from physical and emtional experiences that she might not be able to metabolize in her state, even if they are with DREAMY, DREAMY FLOPPY HAIRED SAM.
But, Sam has other plans, for example, getting down in the biblical sense with Joon while Benny is away pursuing some tired-ass subplot with a waitress played by a pre-EVERYTHING Julianne Moore. Benny keeps on with his pestering Sam about his career, and Joon gets pissed and lets slip the fact that she and Sam are now romantically involved. Benny flips shit and throws Sam out because now he cares very deeply for his sister, not like before when he would just let any guy he won in a poker game be her number one caretaker, not protecting her from physical and emtional experiences that she might not be able to metabolize in her state, even if they are with DREAMY, DREAMY FLOPPY HAIRED SAM.
"Oh. What have I done to another human being?"
Sam and Joon run away- And god knows where these two are going. 7-11? Maybe!- but, on their city bus ride to nowhere, Joon starts to hear voices in her head and begins arguing loudly to herself. She cannot be consoled, and Sam ends up having to take her to the hospital because all of the sudden this movie is wondering whether or not True Love can take the place of, like, Clozaril. Benny and Joon's doctor are interested in having Joon move into a group home, where she can get the care that she needs- not just from drifters,- and for some reason that's a really bad idea, the villainous group-home. So, in the end, Benny is basically like, well, fuck it, why don't we get you an apartment of your own, Joon, and Sam can live with you and Julianne Moore, who has nothing better to do, will try to make sure you guys don't burn the house down when she's not at work, in the can, or otherwise living her life. So that's what happens. Fantastic!
I mean. Yeah. Look, in the Say Something Nice Challenge, I guess it was cool, for one brief, shinning moment, for Johnny Depp to have a romantic lead who was roughly his age. Now, if Mary Stewart Masterson were still working, she would be cast as the frail Nana to Johnny Depp's new romantic lead, Elle Fanning. So, that was a nice touch, maybe, for 22 years ago. (clears throat.) Well.
I mean. Yeah. Look, in the Say Something Nice Challenge, I guess it was cool, for one brief, shinning moment, for Johnny Depp to have a romantic lead who was roughly his age. Now, if Mary Stewart Masterson were still working, she would be cast as the frail Nana to Johnny Depp's new romantic lead, Elle Fanning. So, that was a nice touch, maybe, for 22 years ago. (clears throat.) Well.
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