Stay Cool

 

Stay Cool 2009

• Director: Michael Polish
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Sean Astin, Hillary Duff, Josh Holloway, Jon Cryer, Chevy Chase, Frances Conroy
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Winona Ryder – Black Swan, The Secret Lives of Pippa Lee, A Scanner Darkly, The Darwin Awards, Girl Interrupted, Alien Resurrection, The Crucible, Little Women, Reality Bites, Night on Earth, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice
• Hillary Duff – Human Nature
• Josh Holloway – Lost
• Chevy Chase – As little as possible
• Frances Conroy – Joker, Shelter, Six Feet Under, Broken Flowers, Sleepless in Seattle, The Scent of a Woman, Billy Bathgate
• Why? Winona Ryder
• Seen: 17 December 2022. 

       In high school Henry (Polish) was a nerd with only two friends Big Girl (Astin) and Wino (Holloway). Twenty years later he returns to his home town, now a best-selling author, but he and the two friends, who never left, are still nerds. No one in town has read Henry’s book.

       Is there anything worse than an American high school film? Yes, an American high school film twenty years later.

       It could have been better with better actors. Ryder does her job but Polish has the charisma of a potato. No, unfair, I like potatoes. Of a parsnip, then. Someone has suggested that John Cusack would have been better in the role and this is definitely true but I’m sure that if offered it, he would have turned it down.

       It’s mildly amusing that everyone in town starts reading his book and discovers that it’s about them. For that and Ryder it gets       

2* of 5