Back to the Future
Robert Zemeckis’s “Back to the Future” is, more than ever after 25 years, the director’s best (and certainly most entertaining) film. Yes, even better than “Cast Away” or the Oscar-winning “Forrest Gump.” From the opening frames, he does everything right in staging, writing (which he did with Bob Gale), and getting just the right performances out of Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, and Crispin Glover.
Given Hollywood’s recent penchant for unnecessary remakes or sequels, there’s much to worry about an updated “Back to the Future.” Thankfully, it was produced by Steven Spielberg, and regardless of what you may think of some of his decisions the past 20 years, he won’t revisit a project without a good idea why (to him at least; that “E.T.” Special Edition still makes me groan).
This is a movie that couldn’t have been made in any other decade. It’s a movie purely of the ’80s, from the Huey Lewis songs to the costumes to the attitude of Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly, whether he’s dodging Principal Strickland; auditioning for Battle of the Bands; walking with his girlfriend Jennifer (Claudia Wells); or talking with his parents George (Glover) and Lorraine (Thompson). Anyone who lived in the decade of Reagan and life vests as a fashion statement knows what I’m talking about.
But there’s something else, also. In all honesty, it’s hard to imagine being able to do what this film does in how it portrays the ’50s nowadays, especially when “Mad Men” and “Far From Heaven” and “Revolutionary Road” have done so much to blow the lid off of such nostalgia. That makes “Back to the Future” feel like a relic of another period of time. I refuse to say “dated,” because the film is just as fresh and funny as it ever was, taking the sci-fi idea of time-travel and turning it into something pretty damn ingenious, as well as slyly subversive. Let’s face it-the idea of making out with your mother while trying to hook her up with your father has never been funnier.
But watching it in a special screening this past weekend, I felt a bit more connected to the film on a personal level. I very much felt a kinship with Marty and his attempts to get his parents together. I was watching the film with two of my best friends, who recently started seeing one another romantically after having just met in person at my birthday party. Admittedly, it wasn’t my intention to set them up, but it’s funny how life works sometimes. These two wouldn’t have even met were it not for me, meaning had I died in 2007 when I was hospitalized with pneumonia, the odds are good they wouldn’t know one another, much less fallen for one another. This is where I felt a kinship with Marty-because of his dilemma, he’s caused a disconnect that has not only changed his parent’s lives, but threatened his very existence. It’s up to him to make sure they find one another and live happily ever after. I haven’t quite felt that level of responsibility with my friends, but I know I’ve been a sounding board for them in their own lives and sorting things out, and in the end, it’s been a positive situation for all three of us as we move forward. That same satisfaction the Marty, George and Lorraine feel in their last meeting in 1955, I felt when the movie ended.
All that being said, however, the film-and the trilogy that followed-all comes down to the friendship between Marty and Doc Brown, which will only grow deeper when Marty has to look up the younger Doc, and ultimately has to make some hard choices given what he knows of the future. It’s in these moments where Fox and Lloyd are at their most hilarious and heartfelt, given a theme by Alan Silvestri that’ll pull at your heartstrings every time. It’s that bond, which drives the adventure Zemeckis is telling, that makes “Back to the Future” something more than a flash-in-the-pan hit. The result is an endearing classic.
