Class

Like the more adult Risky Business and The Girl Next Door (neither reviewed on this site as they are grown-up movies about teens, rather than for them), this is one of those films that brings to life many a teenage boy’s fantasy. Naive young Jonathan (McCarthy, in his film debut) finds life is never the same again after he befriends the monied Skip (Lowe) at the posh prep school they both attend. Skip helpfully sends Jonathan off to the city to find a woman to lose his virginity with, and Jonathan succeeds with a businesswoman he meets in a hotel (Jacqueline Bisset) who somehow believes he is older than his seventeen years. It’s only later, of course, that she discovers he’s just a kid and later still when the pair realise they have something in common – she’s Skip’s mother!
Definitely one aimed at older teens, because of the hormones raging in every scene, this movie can’t decide whether it is comedy or drama, so throws in a bit of both. It doesn’t quite work, therefore, but there are nice performances from the three leads and some fun stuff throughout. Fact fans should note that, as well as boasting the first film role for McCarthy, Class also marked the feature-film debuts for Virginia Madsen and a very young and pimply John Cusack.