Vision Quest

I know what you're thinking, and you're right. Vision Quest is, like, 25 years old. I'm stuck in a time warp--in a time I was really too young to even appreciate. You're right. You're right about all of that. But, I cannot control which movies were relentlessly on t.v. when I was growing up, or which movies my sisters and brother loved. I was the youngest, the ghost in the room. No one remembered I was there, so no one could tell me to not watch an R-rated moved at age five or to go to bed before 10 p.m. And, oh, did I use it. I am not claiming that I wasn't loved--far from it. But, I was sort of invisible when it came to television/movie censorship and designated bedtimes. It's okay; you can be jealous. Oh, and don't think I didn't know how odd this all was. I had to always pretend to my fellow first graders that I had no idea what Coming To America was (you know...starring Eddie Murphy and a whole bunch of curse words and sexual innuendos). Freddie Krueger movies? Please. Piece of cake. So, anyway, I couldn't control what movies affected me as a child or what movies still keep a hold on me. All I know is that I love (still! To this day!) Vision Quest.

Matthew Modine (Louden) is young and cute and completely in his prime. He is a high school wrestler who is determined to go down a weight class in order to wrestle someone on a rival team: Shute. He has to drop weight, and go from something like 190 to 170. When I was a little kid, I didn't really understand what that meant. Now I know: that's a lot of weight, especially because Louden's pretty tall. What I did understand, however, was that it took a ton of discipline to lose all of that. So, Louden goes on a sort of Vision Quest to wrestle the undefeated Shute. And, in the midst of all of that, he meets a traveler, the gorgeous Linda Fiorentino, who ends up boarding at Louden and his dad's house for a bit. She's hot. He's hot. They get it on. That little love story is not the best thing about this movie. What has made the movie good then, and what makes it hold up now is the palpability of Louden's raw determination.

Louden has to lose weight. He is obsessed with it. He cuts way back on calories. He jogs in a sort of rubber suit. He exercises at every moment he can. He climbs the cork board at wrestling practice, which is one of THE best scenes in film history. But, he's also a hemophiliac, which makes him kind of fragile. Believe me, you root for him a little when he breaks his diet one time and stuffs a doughnut into his mouth. You cheer him because it makes him human and it reminds you of all of his self-inflicted sacrifices. It's so hard to be a human who wants to feel, and who chooses deprivation as the most physical manifestation of such a thing as wrestling the best (and fulfilling a vision quest).