Foxes

It’s really one of the very first, very early Gen-X movies (the true first one, to me, is 1978’s terrific Over the Edge), and I was struck all over again by the freshness of what it captured: these four prematurely jaded adolescent girls, led by Jodie Foster as the sensible one, living like baby adults, cut off from their parents and the past, bonded only by attitude, consumerism, and the pop-culture decadence they share.

It contains the sounds and rhythms of real teen-age lives; it was written and directed after a lot of research, and is acted by kids who are to one degree or another playing themselves. The movie's a rare attempt to provide a portrait of the way teen-agers really do live today in some suburban cultures.

The movie’s worth checking out for its collision of musical sensibilities, featuring the first screen performance by the Runaways’ Cherie Currie and an original score by disco kingpin Giorgio Moroder.

Although their film resolves itself into a lurid shambles, screenwriter Gerald Ayres and director Adrian Lyne demonstrate a certain flair for foxy exploitation. [19 Apr 1980, p.C3]

Foxes is an ambitious attempt to do a film relating to some of the not-so-acceptable realities among teenagers that ends up delivering far less than it is capable of.

The performances are stronger than the movie itself. Jodie Foster shows continued growth as an actress, and her girlfriends are skillfully portrayed. [21 Mar 1980, p.15]

Although Foxes's attempt to delve into the problems of modern-day teenagers is admirable, its screenplay is frequently trite, lacks any leavening humor, and too easily ties together its plentiful loose ends with a contrived plot device.