I suppose this won’t be much of a surprise to those of us who have followed Haim’s tailspin – and to those of us who fondly remembered his heyday in the 80s – but Corey Haim has died of an accidental overdose. I’m sad about this one. Perhaps he is mainly remembered for his performance in The Lost Boys, which he starred in with that OTHER troubled Corey – but I will always hold Haim in my heart for his beautiful strange performance in the under-rated Lucas. I have been wanting to write Lucas up for a while in my Under-Rated Movies Series (you can check out the other titles I reviewed here – scroll to the bottom), and I am sorry I didn’t do it before now, when the movie will take on an elegiac mood. If you haven’t seen Lucas, and I told you the plot, and I mentioned that Charlie Sheen is in it as the “cool kid” in school, you might write it off as regular old teenage fare. You would be wrong to do so. The script of Lucas is sensitive and observant, and like the best of the movies made for this demographic, it takes note of the stereotypes, because we all know that high school is one of the most hierarchically-based times of our lives, but it also doesn’t accept that stereotypes are actually who we are. In high school, we play roles. Or, more accurately, we are ASSIGNED roles. You’re the geek. You’re the hot chick. You’re the brain. You’re the jock. John Hughes was right. We all experienced that. Lucas has some tricks up its sleeve, but not because it is interested in being tricky – but because it knows that if you dig a little bit deeper, you will find humanity literally EVERYWHERE. Even in high school. Corey Haim plays a little isolated weirdo, who is obsessed with bugs. He rides around on his bicycle with a butterfly net stuck to the back. He is smarter than everyone else, and he knows it – he has that arrogance that can come from being REJECTED because you acutally, you know, use your brain. But Haim is wonderful in how he suggests the pain that is beneath that, the pain of rejection and alienation, not to mention the unspeakable awfulness of his home life, which is not even revealed until later in the movie. Lucas, on one of his summer bug-outings, meets a pretty redheaded girl, and they bond, in that time-out-of-time way that can happen during summer vacation, when more things are possible. Would they ever have become friends during the school year, in between classes? Probably not.
I’ll write a better review of Lucas in a bit, when I’ve had a chance to watch it again.
But for right now I will say this: Corey Haim, as Lucas, creates an unforgettable character, flawed and annoying at times, but also heartbreaking and funny. He is that weird kid you might have overlooked at school, because of his weirdo hat and big weird glasses – he would have that label of WEIRD – but he embodies that character like he was born to play it. You ache for him. You LOVE him. You want to protect him, because he is so scrawny and little, but as the film goes on, and you watch him navigate, you realize that Lucas is no victim. He may be a pipsqueak, but he is doing the best he can, and his survival skills are strong indeed. He is nobody to feel sorry for. Lucas will go on to flourish out in the real world, where his brains will be praised and admired. For now, in high school, he tries to deflect rejection by having contempt for the social structures of the world in which he lives. He hates everyone. But that is a stance that cannot be sustained, for someone like Lucas. He’s not an anti-social poseur. He’s not a phony. He doesn’t wear black as a protest, he doesn’t rebel. He falls in love for the first time. And, wonder of wonders, this redheaded girl in a white skirt, actually seems WORTHY of his love. She is not portrayed as “out of his league”, or as a hottie from a mansion, or any other unimaginative trope from movies such as these. She is new in town, kind of lonely, nervous about school starting, and she’s a nice girl. She likes Lucas. He’s funny. He’s fun to hang out with.
Corey Haim has been gone from the scene for a long long time. He burned out pretty quick. And I have mourned that loss. Because I will always ALWAYS think of him not as a hot young teen star, with slicked-up hair and sunglasses – but as the scrawny kid, on the cusp of being a real teenager, wearing a floppy hat and wielding a butterfly net. It’s rare that you see a young man at that age who can suggest such vulnerability, yet also such strength and smarts.
Roger Ebert said of Haim in his review for Lucas:
Lucas is played by Corey Haim, who was Sally Field’s son in “Murphy’s Romance,” and he does not give one of those cute little boy performances that get on your nerves. He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good.
Yes. He was.
Rest in peace.
More love for Lucas here.
It is really sad. I haven’t really followed him, but I know that he and Feldman were trying out the reality TV stuff and there was a hubub about him trying to get clean.
I think back to those roles in the 80s and I wonder what might have been. Given his looks and acting ability, I bet he could have been doing the kinds of things that Matt Damon is doing but with less of a sense of pretension. Who knows though?
Truly, rest is peace.
Rest IN peace. Darn.
Rest is peace as well.
His performances as a child (Murphy’s Romance as well, a movie I adore) are quite precocious, in the best sense of the word. He had a gift.
Lucas, to me, is the gem of his career. Must give it another look, as sad as it will be now.
I barely remember Lucas. I guess I kind of burnt out on the Coreys because my heydey of 80s movie watching coincided with their heydey of fluff movies. It will be interesting to go back and look at some of the good stuff again.
Lucas came earlier than his heyday of teen fluff. Posted a piece from NPR at the bottom of this post. Lucas is really the one to see.
It was Winona Ryder’s debut as well.
Wonderful script. Thoughtful, surprising, moving. Everyone’s great in it. But it’s Haim’s movie.
Yeah, I meant to add that out of the all those movies I’ve gone back and watched, I haven’t really revisited any of Haim’s (except for Lost Boys). So I only have my early-80s HBO viewings of Lucas to rely on – hazy hazy. But on your recommendation, I’m all over it.
And Charlie Sheen is terrific as well – the part is very well written (all of the three leads are). You think (because it’s a cliche) that his character will be one way – but then he is totally NOT. His character reminds me of Keith McAuliffe, the boy from my high school, popular and hot and well-liked and a jock – I’ve written about him before. A kind person. Who uses his social power well.
There’s actually a touching friendship between Sheen and Lucas – Damn, the whole thing is just a good movie, period.
Totally under-rated, yet it is really nice to see, in all of the posts out there about Haim, how well Lucas is remembered, and how fondly.
Slightly OT, what ever happened to Kerri Green? She was in Goonies, Summer Rental (one of my guilty pleasure movies) and Lucas… and then nothing.
I thought she was in Dream a Little Dream 2, an awful movie, ironically a Cory & Cory sequel to a movie that wasn’t all that good in the first place, but that turned out to be Robyn Lively (Blake’s older sister) who looks nothing like Kerri Green, except that they are both red-headed and “girl next door” cute/beautiful.
Kerri Green is another reason why Lucas is so good. That character is unexpected – she has a kindness in her – and the movie is a fine one because it never betrays the essential qualities of the three main leads: she doesn’t “dis” Lucas when school starts, although she does try to make new friends – and Charlie Sheen doesn’t “dis” Lucas either – In a way his character reminds me of the one Ryan Reynolds played so well in Adventureland (another movie I really admire). Reynolds could have been written to be a dick to his younger geekier virgin rival – but he doesn’t. He actually befriends him. It’s sincere, too – he doesn’t have ulterior motives.
I like movies that respects the people it is portraying – so many teen movies are so freakin’ cynical – Lucas is one of the best.
Kerri Green’s character in the Goonies is kind of similar, though there she starts out running with the popular crowd, but is nice enough to befriend the “goonies”.
I did some quick research, and according to wikipedia, the movie “Three for the Road” starring Green, Charlie Sheen and Alan Ruck was a box office bomb that killed the rising careers of Green and Ruck. If that was true, I’m really pissed at Hollywood for blaming the stars for a weak story and poor script.
Well, that’s the industry, JFH. It’s a brutal one. Happens all the time.
If someone who was as big as Mickey Rourke can fall so far – then imagine the vulnerability of those just starting out.
Lucas was one of my favorite movies of the 80s. You’re right, Haim is so lovely and wierd and real in it. I identified with his “kid who doesn’t fit in,” in a way that I couldn’t with most other teen movies. His Hollywood downward spiral was so much sadder becauseof this movie.
The “Lucas clap” now has such a sad pall on it…
I know, Sheila, and I’m not saying it doesn’t happen in other industries (as a consultant I see this all the time). The difference is is that this other industry verticals have competitive companies which can easily pick up these “free agents” (or have to pay equivalent wages if a non-compete agreement exists) or another industry vertical can use the person’s skills.
I get the feeling, with no knowledge of the industry (so my opinion is meaningless) that the movie business is too closely tied together, to the point that it is almost an oligopoly. The fashion industry (which I HAVE done some consulting) is probably the best equivalent. They have a fixed mind set in how to produce fashions and use their power to squelch any upstart that doesn’t go by the fashion “rules” of the way to do business and the way to produce new lines… Like the movie industry, they have lackeys in the media that allow them to propagate their power.
Erik – yes, the famous “slow clap” – I always thought that that movie INVENTED the “slow clap” and as cliche as that last scene may seem on paper – it packs a huge punch, doesn’t it??
Tears!! Lucas is a character I have always remembered. He was such a cutie-pie, too, in that totally on-the-edge-of-being-handsome thing that some nerds have. He’s not owning it yet – he’s still just in middle school, basically. He’s not a man yet.
Such a nice performance (and movie).
JFH – Nah, that’s not it.
Think of it more like an Olympic sport, and you’ll get it.
I didn’t say it didn’t happen in other industries. I’m not talking about other industries, of which I know nothing. I’m talking about this one.
Young stars are very vulnerable – it’s hard to build a career that is meaningful and will last. So many things need to be in place (luck, a great team of advisers, talent, the right attitude, the PART that will catapult you into fame) – and even then none of it is a done deal. Nicholson says he still worries about where the next job will come from.
Erik – by the way, I’m gonna be out in LA for your show. Can’t wait to finally meet you!!
In re: Lucas, I am especially fond of the pep rally scene – which strikes just the right tone – Lucas, there, makes you realize that you really don’t need to worry about the kid, or feel sorry for him. Yes, he’s strange, but he turns that potentially terrible situation to his advantage.
I also lOVE the scene when Maggie (Kerri Green) comes to visit him in the hospital. Perfectly written, so moving!
I can’t believe I forgot about the slow clap!!!
I’m pretty sure this started the MODERN cliche of the slow clap (Roger Ebert has always claimed that the origin of the slow clap came from “Citizen Kane”)
Here’s the trailer for Lucas.
“It’s perfect that your name is Maggie,” he says. “perfect.”
It’s moments like that that really show the special-ness of the script.
Because – that’s kind of what love feels like when you’re 13 years old. Everything about the beloved is PERFECT, even their name.
There may have been other slow claps before Lucas, but Lucas really cemented the slow clap as a cinematic trope. That scene makes me cry every time, huge wallop!
The trailer gave me chills. SO many great lines:
“To collect ‘em you have to kill ‘em. I just look at them.”
“If you’re so depressed, how come you’re eating pizza.”
“I’m a party animal.”
I mean, come on.
p.s. So excited that you’re going to be in LA during the run and that we’ll get to meet IRL! We had an awesome first read-thru last night.
And Winona Ryder was really sweet in it, too – you can see why she would go on to success as well. Hunched over in her black sweater, a weirdo, not grown into beauty yet.
Erik – yes, I will be there! So psyched to hear about your read-through. I’m also going to get to see Cashel in HIS play – so it should be a really good trip. Hoping to get a read-thru of my play going as well. Busy!!! Good luck with rehearsals!
You have so much going on during your LA trip, that’s awesome! You’re such a good aunt, coming out to see Cashel in his play. I would love to come to your reading, if you’re inviting people!
Erik – stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted.