Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993 TAG: 9304030275
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`THE CRUSH': A SLEAZY `LOLITA'
"The Crush" is a jarring testimony to the popular perception that the movie industry at its worst is out of touch with just about everything.This thriller with yet another psychotic female villain could well have been titled "The Hand That Robs the Cradle." Well, almost.
Hero Nick Eliot doesn't succumb to the seductive maneuvers of 14-year-old Darian Forrester, but he's tempted more than a 28-year-old man with a grain of sense should be.
The most repellent aspect of the movie is a bit of misguided and phony logic that it tries to pass off on audiences.
Because Darian is a sociopath and at least twice as smart as her object of desire, it's OK to treat this 14-year-old character as a sex object. The camera leeringly lingers over her bikini-clad form and incessant pouting. It's "Lolita" by way of "Fatal Attraction" without the literary bona fides.
Cary Elwes, who slips in and out of an English accent, plays Nick, an investigative reporter working for a trendy magazine. Nick rents a guest house from the Forresters, a couple that spends very little time in the big house. However, they apparently let Darian (Alicia Silverstone) have the run of the place.
Darian is an accomplished classical pianist, a brilliant scholar who specializes in entomology and an incorrigible tease. So smart is Darian that she sneaks into Nick's house and rewrites one of his stories. And it's so good that the subject, who refuses to grant reporters an interview, calls up Nick's editor and says he will give the guy an exclusive because he likes the story so much.
Before long, Darian is intruding into every aspect of Nick's life, but he doesn't exactly beat her off with a stick. Instead, he hunches over his word processor looking like an Esquire fashion model and ogles Darian. When he becomes involved with a magazine photographer (Jennifer Rubin), the toxic teen goes into overdrive.
If writer-director Alan Shapiro had made Darian of voting age, this would have been merely a ridiculous thriller. But its exploitation of a 14-year-old character in a sexual context makes it downright sleazy.
\ The Crush: A Warner Brothers release at Salem Valley 8 (389-0444) and Valley View Mall 6 (362-8219). Rated R for violence and sexual references. 90 minutes.