Review of Jennifer's Body

Jennifer's Body is largely going to be remembered as Diablo Cody's sophomore slump as a writer, following runaway success and subsequent Oscar she won for Juno. Her overnight success (which has naturally generated a certain amount of backlash) has many critics sharpening their claws to rip apart the next film that has her name listed as the writer. It's certainly an unfair comparison but even taken on it's own Jennifer's Body has a number of issues that hold it back from being as fun as it could have been.

Jennifer's Body tells the story of friends Jennifer (Megan Fox of Transformers) and "Needy" (Amanda Seyfried of Mama Mia) living in the small town of Devil's Kettle. They've been friends since they were very young and have remained close, even as Jennifer has grown into the hottest and most lusted after girl in town and Needy has grown into a geek overall low rung on the social ladder. Needy has her steady boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons of Hotel for Dogs) and Jennifer seems to just hop from boy to boy as it suits her tastes. One night Needy and Jennifer go to see an indie band at the local watering hole, but something happens. At the end of the night the tavern has burned down to the ground and Jennifer vanished with the band. When Jennifer shows up again she's somehow changed. It isn't long before bodies of boys from the high school start turning up, horribly killed and partially eaten. Needy suspects that Jennifer is at the heart of it all and sets out to stop the killings and do what she has to in order to stop Jennifer.

The cast of Jennifer's Body handles the stylized and quotable dialogue well and all turn in performances that work, though few truly stand out. Megan Fox certainly has no problem with the sexual aspects of Jennifer but there doesn't seem to be a great deal going on behind that. For the purposes of the film it works but there could have been more of a tragic side to the story if Jennifer herself had less of a disposable personality. Needy definitely has more layers than Jennifer and Amanda Seyfried makes her relatable and easy to root for. Other performances of note are the always wonderful J.K. Simmons, from Juno and Spider-man, as a teacher at the school where all of this is going down. Also of note is Adam Brody (In the Land of Women) who does a great job of skewering indie rock bands as the lead singer of Low Shoulder. While the performances and dialogue give most of the highlights there are a number of things that pull down the overall experience.

Genre wise it can be a little misleading to call Jennifer's Body a horror movie. While it certainly takes the format of a horror movie and uses the conventions of one it never really feels like the point is to scare anybody. It's rather reminiscent of how TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer used horror elements without actually having the point of them be to scare the audience. However that leaves the film in a bit of a weird place. While it is truly very funny at various points the humor is spread out a little to thin to be able to say the film as a whole is meant to be a comedy (even a dark one). Ultimately it has the problem of many films that attempt to be multi-genre, it doesn't comfortably fit completely as either a horror movie or a comedy and those two elements aren't as well blended as they need to be for it to be both.

More damaging to Jennifer's Body than the genre hopping though is the way the film is assembled. Specifically there are two choices made in terms of overall framing and pacing that take the wind out of the film as a whole. The movie actually starts at the end with Needy narrating the events after they've already happened. Because of the glimpse we get of what ultimately happens to her the ultimate resolution is very easy to guess so there's a great deal of tension lost there. Also the scene that reveals what actually happened to cause Jennifer's transformation is put in a rather awkward place. Rather than see it at the point that it happens the events are recapped by Jennifer to Needy about halfway through the movie. Unfortunately Jennifer has already been ripping into bodies for a while at this point but there's been no clear indication as to why. The point was probably to add an element of mystery but instead it just raises so many questions that the parts up until the reveal lack power. The audience is too busy trying to figure out if something that was already in Jennifer has be awakened, or is she possessed, does she know what she's doing, or is it even really her anymore or what. The reveal itself is easily one of the best and most memorable scenes in the film but it needed to be placed earlier to help bring more gravity to what was going on. With both of these issues one can't help but wonder if director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux) and the studio heads were too scared of changing anything from the page after Diablo Cody's Oscar win, even if that change would have made things run smoother.

While the film overall is enjoyable it is not particularly memorable (beyond a few very quotable lines, which seems likely to become Cody's trademark). Anybody going in looking for Diablo Cody to fail will probably find what they want. Those looking for something of the same caliber as Juno will walk out disappointed. But those simply looking for an evening of bloody entertainment could do worse. Cody will probably take most of heat for the films failings but honestly it's not all her fault. Director Kusama couldn't seem to find the balance of horror and comedy and the issues in constructing the film should have been fixed in the editing room. More to the point most of what works, much of which is dialogue, is very clearly owed to Cody as a writer. In the not so distant future this will likely be a forgotten film for most of the talent involved but it is a little better than that.

Final Score 2.5 out of 5