Review of Jeremy

Jeremy is a low budget movie from 1973 that won critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a story about teenage love starring Robby Benson as Jeremy, and Glynnis O'Connor as Susan.

Why am I reviewing it in this blog? Because according to a book about male virginity written by Brian Gilmartin, Jeremy was the favorite movie of male virgins. For a long time Jeremy has been unavailable, but it was recently released on DVD so I bought a copy from Amazon.com out of curiousity to see what the fuss is all about.

From a technical perspective it's a pretty lousy DVD. The picture is grainy and blurry and the colors are dull. It's very disappointing to look at after viewing DVDs of modern movies and TV shows. The DVD contains no extras, just the movie.

The movie takes place in New York City, so if you're a New Yorker you'll find it interesting seeing what the city looked like in 1973. I also liked the early 1970s folk music soundtrack, but unfortunately the same song was played several times; it would have been better to have a greater variety of music.

But the story itself? Jeremy is a shy and very nerdy looking high school sophomore who has never had any sort of relationship with a girl. He's afraid to even talk to them. This is probably familiar to most male virgins, but I found it painful to watch.

A beautiful girl, Susan, sees Jeremy playing the cello at a school concert, and likes him because of that. Jeremy likes her because of her looks. (I don't think she looks that exciting, but that's not the point, Jeremy does, and perhaps she was pretty for 1973 but what we consider pretty changes with the decades.)

Jeremy's attempts to ask her out are incredibly nerdy and dorky, but once they are together it's Susan who pushes the relationship along, and finally there is a scene where she's on top and she takes off her top and her bra and then... well I'm not sure what happened but from the context of the movie I don't think they had sex, they just made out.

I guess this movie is every male virgin's fantasy, that he will meet a pretty girl who will like him for some trait other than his looks and she will move the relationship along.

Unfortunately, the movie didn't really do that much for me. I found it slow and boring and painful to watch Jeremy being nerdy and awkward. It's not a movie I would want to watch again.

I should point out that, besides the unusual (for Hollywood) twist of Jeremy being really nerdy and Susan pushing along the relationship, the movie otherwise reinforces the usual stereotypes. The girl has to look pretty, and in order for the boy to win the heart of the pretty girl he has to do something exceptional, in this case play the cello exceptionally well.

The people commenting on my blog have a problem with me writing so much about how women look, but I'm just taking my cues from the media and society.