Making It

Phil is your typically cocky seventeen year old.  He even believes, and informs his English teacher, he is smarter than ninety-nine percent of the population.  "But it's that one percent I have to watch out for," he warns.  But no matter, just about everyone he encounters in 1971's MAKING IT is easily smitten and/or hoodwinked by this self proclaimed lothario. He likes to read Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence. Phil's main goal is to make it with as many girls as possible.  During the film, he will succeed with a classmate who is a virgin, a college girl he meets in a bookstore (a great place to find hook ups, he informs his nerdy friend), and the high school basketball coach's wife.  In the early '70s, several films featured a neglected coach's wife, you know?

Phil (Kristoffer Tabori) lives with his divorced mother, who is dating a nice guy she wants to marry, but not for love.  Stability? Yes, but also a fear of being older and alone.  The adults in MAKING IT all voice laments of being thirty or beyond.  His English teacher even feels that magic age is when death occurs.  Is he envious of Phil's youth? His bravado? Certainly.  But when the young man suffers repercussion of his devil may care lifestyle, he will offer some financial assistance, seeing it as part of a life lesson the kid desperately needs.

For what, I will leave you to discover.  The third act of MAKING IT, which prior had been mostly a humorous portrait of high school life and period zeitgeist (note the scene with Phil and the mother of his classmate), gets quite serious, and I feel writer Peter Bart (later a journalist and film producer) and director John Erman make the leap successfully.  The film transforms into a very serious coming of age drama in which a pompous hedonist grows a conscience, and a sense of responsibility.  These moments involve his mother Betty (Joyce Van Patten) and a social issue that remains white hot controversial to this day.  I was cringing as to how it would be handled, but ultimately I found it highly effective and believable.  It concludes the film properly, though by the end titles we wonder if the entire thing is uneven as a result.

MAKING IT, pretty much forgotten since its release, is not necessarily a great film, as it maybe gets a little too ridiculous at times, but the capture of the era and its attitudes make it another valuable capsule for historians. Though many themes here are timeless.  The cast, led by Taborri in a fine, refreshingly subtle performance, is well selected.  This includes an amusing Bob Balaban in an early role as that nerdy friend, named Wilkie.  Lawrence Pressman as the aforementioned teacher, Mr. Mallory, and other character actors you've likely seen if you're familiar with '70s television.  Everyone is still wondering why Dick Van Patten, Joyce's brother, was cast as her fiance. They even have a kissing scene.  Ewwwww.

P.S. -  An incredulous classroom debate between Phil and Mallory about The Catcher in the Rye had me wondering if anyone associated with this movie actually read Salinger's book.