Tag Archives: modern girls

Title card for Modern Girls (1986), featuring bold, stylized typography with a neon-inspired outline. The title is set against a backdrop of the Los Angeles skyline, reflecting the film’s urban, nightlife-driven setting. The letters are filled with scenes from the movie, blending images of the main characters with the cityscape, emphasizing the film’s mix of youthful energy, fashion, and music culture from the 1980s

Modern Girls

Ahhhh. I rewatched this not long after Fire With Fire. I said when I wrote about that it was such an 80s movie you would have had to have been there to understand.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Modern Girls ups that ante to a whole other level.

Released in 1986 Modern Girls is very much an 80s film. It’s so 80s it would be hard to make the film today without it feeling like a parody. It is of course not a parody but instead  a true product of its time.

Moden Girls takes three women, or, girls, all in their early twenties, all working mundane jobsand all living life to their full in the Los Angeles nightlight. Kelly (our Virginia) works in a Pet Store and has a knack for being able to sell them,  Margo (Daphne Zuniga) works in telemarketing and we meet Cece (Cynthia Gibb) just as she’s getting fired from her job in a Department Store.Virginia Madsen in Modern Girls lounges on a vintage-style wrought iron bed in a pastel pink bedroom, resting her head on one hand while holding a red lips-shaped telephone. She wears a white tank top and shorts, with her legs playfully kicked up, adorned with white socks. The cozy room is bathed in warm, soft lighting from a bedside lamp, featuring frilly pillows, lace curtains, and a collection of '80s memorabilia on a nightstand, evoking a dreamy and nostalgic aesthetic.All looking for love in the wrong places, they’ve got the stereotypical 80s males all preening around them and out for what they can get. That’s not to say these ladies aren’t out for what they can get either, there is a game to be played and they are all in.

The main part of the film kicks in when Margo and Cece are getting ready to go out for the night, they’re almost ready but discover Kelly has gone without them, and taken Margo’s car to boot. Kellys date for the night, Clifford (Clayton Rohner) arrives to pick her up, she’s not there obviously, and the two girls convince him to drive them into town to find her.

What follows is a crazy, and probably impossibly implausibly long night as the girls (and Clifford) get dragged on a roller coaster of ups and downs invoiving mistaken identities, drug spiking, detective work, music video direction, car problems and various near sexual assaults.Virginia Madsen lies dramatically on a green pool table, surrounded by scattered billiard balls. She wears a sparkling, sheer pink dress with lace details and flowing fabric, evoking an ethereal, dreamlike aesthetic. Her voluminous blonde curls frame her face as she gazes upwards, her expression caught between dazed and glamorous, embodying the neon-soaked decadence of the '80s.Honestly, I thought I’d had some pretty funky nights myself till I started watching 80s films about nights on the town. There is enough here crammed into one night then most people will have in a month’s worth of nights out. Well, that or I’ve led a very sheltered life.

On a side note, I got about half way through this before I started wondering if a film like this would be made today. It deals with some pretty messy themes at times, especially when it comes to Kelly with the drugs and potential assaults. It was only a PG-13 in the US and has a 15 rating in the UK. I’m no prude when it comes to this kind of thing but the thought of watching it with my school going teenage kids doesn’t fill me with happy thoughts.A nighttime scene from Modern Girls (1986). Virginia Madsen, with voluminous curly blonde hair, wears a light pink, semi-sheer outfit with a flowing scarf, sitting in the passenger seat of a Jeep. She smiles playfully at the driver, a young man with tousled brown hair, dressed in a dark jacket, fingerless gloves, and a bandana around his neck. The neon-lit city streets blur in the background, evoking an '80s urban nightlife aesthetic.Virginia shines in this film though, her depiction of Kelly is spot on and I can’t think of anyone else who I’d rather have seen in the role. I think I was particularly impressed with her for Kely being so far apart from Lisa in Fire with Fire. I didn’t hate her performance in that, but it was a very different type or role and character, considering the two were released in the same year it’s all the more impressive. And then when you get to thinking about her other roles before in Mussolini, The Hearst and Davies Affair and A Matter of Principle, even more mind blowing.

Kind of interesting and a bit of accidental foreshadowing that one of the first times we see Virginia past the opening blurb stuff she’s lying on a bed reading about Bruce Willis, funny that in just a couple of years she’d be cosing up to him in Moonlighting, i had a little “ha” moment when I clocked it.

It’s a weird one to try and recommend. The eightiesness of it all kind of dates it, but not in a bad way. Modern Girls wasn’t really a success when it was released, but it’s done OK for itself in the home market and became a bit of a cult thing. There are many a webpage / blog post that think this film is one of the best things to come out of the eighties.

I’m sure if you were there and lived it then you’ll have an easier time enjoying it. It really is like a time capsule of a different time, different place and a different way of filmmaking. Even if you weren’t there at the time Modern Girls does have something to offer that way.

I’ve said it before and will no doubt say it again, sometimes you’ve just got to find out these things for yourself.

If nothing else you should watch Virginia in one of her more serious roles before you watch this to realise just how talented she is.

Availability:
It can be found on VHS if that’s your thing, it has had both a DVD and Blu-Ray release in recent years but they can be hard to find, and expensive.

I bought a copy on DVD from eBay, and paid well for it – I actually thought it might be fake because it had a “DVD-R” label on the back and the disc was blue. Turns out that it’s real. The DVD’s are made to order so they are legit – Just a heads up if you weren’t aware like I wasn’t.

Gallery:

Trailer:

<    Previous Home Next     >