Next Gen Journal

By Adam Polaski

It’s unfortunate that very few people will see Jennifer’s Body, the new genre-defying film by Diablo Cody and starring Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox. It only took in $6.8 million in its first weekend in release, which certainly doesn’t bode well for its future success.

Jennifer's Body Official Promotional Image

But let’s be real: the brilliance in Cody’s most recent film merits it making huge bank. The movie features Seyfried and Fox as unlikely best friends – unlikely since Seyfried’s “Needy” is a mondo nerd (and yet, like all Hollywood movies, the costumers and make up artists have to work to make her look less than hot) and Fox’s Jennifer is a slammin’ cheerleader. But when something mysterious happens to Jennifer (namely, a failed human sacrifice to Satan by a band of indie hipsters who feel the only way to earn music acclaim is with Satan’s assistance), she becomes a demonic monster and starts killing and eating boys in order to sustain her own life. Needy catches on quickly and sets out to destroy Jennifer while, obviously, the rest of the town remains oblivious.

J. Bod is a mockery of teen horror films all the way through, even in one of the last scenes, when, after being staked in the stomach, the demonic Jennifer gurgles to Needy, “Do you have a tampon?” It never threatens to take itself too seriously, going absolutely, self-awarely over-the-top, with gratuitous blood, sex and gross black vomit to boot. It’s dark comedy at its finest – Heathers but paranormal and more obviously funny.

Part of what makes J.Bod so wonderful is that Cody makes up the rulebook as she goes along, and it really translates that she is aware of how insanely ridiculous her script is. A few examples: Halfway through the movie, Jennifer suddenly has the power to levitate, with no explanation of why. The indie rockers of Low Shoulder (featuring the hysterical, eyelinered Adam Brody as the scummy lead singer) launch into a rousing, bubbly chorus of a pop song before Brody interrupts by brutally stabbing Jennifer in the stomach. Jennifer lures a boy into an inexplicably abandoned community pool that looks like something out of the jungle scenes in Jumanji.

And, in the most bizarrely awesome scene, Jennifer and Needy, completely unprompted, engage in a minute-long lesbian make-out scene before Jennifer nonchalantly explains to Needy that she was sacrificed as an offering to Satan and is now a Succubus. How’s that for pillow talk? In all of these plot elements, it’s as if Cody turned to her production crew, said, “You know what would be really messed up and random? Yeah…let’s do it. It’s totally illogical.”

Cody’s witty dialogue, a talent so expertly exhibited in Juno and The United States of Tara, is again on display here, and J.Bod’s R rating thankfully allows for an uncensored stream of jokes about anal sex, slutty girls and blasphemy in the face of mourning. And the cast really steps up to the challenge of translating Cody’s snark from page to screen.

I didn’t doubt that Seyfried, who has demonstrated acting prowess in Mean Girls, Veronica Mars and Big Love, could handle the material, but I definitely had my qualms about Fox. But whether Cody manipulated Fox into believing that J.Bod was actually supposed to be seriously acted and scary or whether Fox is just smarter than we all give her credit for, her performance was perfect, portraying the epitome of monster trash while still conveying the elements of bitchy high school seductress that are so essential to the script. Fox didn’t let vanity get in her way, since for most of the movie she was a hot mess to the max, either covered in guts, stained with blood, or  looking like she got run over by a bus immediately after contracting a lethal strain of swine flu. I honestly was not expecting to walk away with confidence in Fox’s acting abilities, but I did. She excelled in this role, and I think it benefited her character that most people already see her as a vapid, boyfriend-stealing loudmouth.

The entire metaphor of bitchy, catty teen girl fights, represented by Jennifer literally stealing all of the boys in school (and eating them, but whatever…) is tidily projected in the catharsis of the movie, when (SPOILER ALERT) Jennifer and Needy sort out their differences by eating the other’s boyfriend and calling the other out on being an insecure twat, respectively. Even here, Cody doesn’t try to surrender the effect of her movie by trying to make a big, preachy moral message about being nice to your peers. She leaves the satire to itself – exposing that no matter how many demonic powers you have or how insecure you are about your own appearance, sometimes when it boils down to it, you really are a stone cold bitch.

Adam Polaski is a NGJ Contributor and a journalism major at Ithaca College, where he is a section editor for Buzzsaw Magazine. He also is pursuing minors in Spanish and religious studies. More of Adam’s work can be found on his blog.