Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault.
Trauma isn’t planned. It’s horror on a beautiful sunny, summer day.
Smooth Talk (1985) is a fascinating coming-of-age story that starts out fairly familiar, with a teenage girl exploring her own sexuality and boundaries over one lazy summer. Directed by Joyce Copra and starring Laura Dern as Connie, the film is pastel-colored and dreamy. The visual cues of a typical teen film are contrasted with the unique frankness about Connie’s adolescence, especially her internal struggles about finding herself; this is most emphasized in numerous scenes where Connie talks to herself in the mirror as she gets ready to go out or plays out a flirtatious encounter with an imaginary guy. Copra crafts a film that doesn’t at all judge Connie for exploring boundaries or teenage angst, and the result is that Smooth Talk becomes a jarringly authentic portrayal of girl adolescence. Its candor and palette, however, don’t prepare the viewer for the harrowing turn the film takes, which culminates in a set piece straight out of a slasher film. Connie, spending the day at home alone, is terrorized by a man (Treat Williams) who’s been stalking her for weeks. The film doesn’t give an explicit scene of what happens after he convinces her to go for a drive with him, but the implications are there; it’s clear Connie’s world after the encounter is forever impacted. Connie herself can’t conceive what’s happened. The very attempt to frame it narratively, emotionally, and intellectually escapes her self-depiction and thus the film’s. It literally doesn’t fit in her world, even after it’s happened.
A lot of Smooth Talk is about a lack of control, both just as a familiar story of a teenager trying to figure life out and as a film about sexual assault. By integrating these two, it completely succeeds in depicting the disintegration of the familiar into the terrifying/terrorizing in two key scenes. The first of these doesn’t come until about a third of the way into the film, with an unnerving shot that occurs while Connie and her friend are hanging out one night at a local restaurant. After a two shot of Connie and her friend sitting at the counter, the camera cuts to a shot outside the restaurant looking through the windows as Connie gets up to buy a pack of cigarettes. The camera is placed behind a man — only the back of his head is seen in medium close-up. The camera pans slowly left to right, mimicking the man’s unseen eyes as he follows Connie. The pop music playing is slowly overlayed with a more threatening soundtrack, signaling the shift in viewpoint away from Connie to this menacing presence. As quickly as the threatening soundtrack came in, the music begins to fade away. The camera then cuts to a medium close-up and the viewer sees the man’s face for the first time as he gives a smirk. The action then returns back to Connie and her friend in the restaurant.
When Connie leaves with a date she’s been flirting with, she’s clearly excited, enjoying the attention she’s getting. As she, placed in close-up in the foreground, passes the stalking man outside leaning on his car, he ominously and quietly says, “I’m watching you.” Her whole demeanor immediately changes as she glances at the ground then back at him pointing his finger directly at her. Connie, clearly unnerved by the encounter, walks away to join her date. The camera lingers on the man, adjusting his sunglasses and looking self-satisfied.
Though the man’s distinctive gold convertible can be seen throughout the film, it isn’t particularly noticeable, and this is the only full scene we get with him until the end. It suggests to the audience that the man could have been watching Connie for a long time, that this probably isn’t the only girl he’s harassed, and to be alert for his reappearance. It’s a genuinely creepy moment and heightens both Connie and the audience’s feeling of being watched.
The scene also elucidates the way Smooth Talk depicts control and empowerment, as Connie’s excitement about the attention she’s getting from her date is sidelined by completely unwanted attention from the stalker. By not engaging directly with him, it suggests that she feels she must be passive through the encounter in order to stay safe and that she does not know exactly how to respond — something that comes up throughout these disturbing scenes. The film is wholly understanding of Connie wanting to explore her own desires and, in this scene of juxtaposition, draws a huge distinction between that and someone aggressively forcing himself upon her.
The second encounter with the stalker begins about two-thirds of the way into the film. Connie has stayed behind at home on a beautiful late summer day while her family is at a barbeque. He pulls up in his gold car, playing loud rock music and with an oddly disengaged friend in the passenger side; Connie pops her head out of the screen front door. “Hey, how ya doing? I ain’t late, am I?” He asks her from the car. The space between them is important, as it gets increasingly smaller throughout the scene — through the shots as well as his predatory movements. She responds, “Hey, do I know you?” still from the porch. He pretends he can’t hear, urging her to come close to the car. They start to chat, but it is clear from Connie’s body language that she is constantly internally renegotiating how dangerous the situation is — the audience is doing the same. The tension is slow burning and incredibly unsettling. He introduces himself as “Arnold Friend” as he gets out of the car and urges her to go for a ride with him. Friend repeats, “I’ve been watching you,” as the music changes yet again. Connie’s body language shifts in realization and he reveals he knows everything about her, including that she’s alone. He starts moving towards her, trying to stop her from going back into the house. She laughs it off but moves quickly back into the house. Like the scene in the parking lot where Connie is silent, this renegotiation is key, determining how scared to be or how accommodating to be — what action will best serve safety in a very unsafe situation.
He continues to talk to her as she looks on from beyond the screened-in door. The home is meant to be a place of security, but it’s now become permeable as he moves closer to the house. This is where Smooth Talk becomes a full-on slasher — the teen in the house stalked by a monster. She tells him to go away, that she has things to do and moves further inside as he slinks in front of the screen door. The conversation between the screen is harrowing, as he occupies her with discussion about being her lover. He implies that he could easily break through it, stating that nothing would keep them apart.
A striking shot occurs with Friend to the left of the cinematic frame, leaning his head against the screen door from the outside. Connie is seen on the right, inside, backing into a corner and sliding down the wall. She eventually runs under the stairway with a phone in her hand, again at the right of screen and in shadow. This is the moment Friend slowly enters the house. The camera cuts to a medium close-up of Connie holding the receiver and sobbing, completely unsure of what to do as she quietly calls out for her mom. But he’s still waiting, unphased by her fear, his coercion unflappable. It’s a horror film. He warns that they’ll need to get back before her parents do and, understanding how dangerous the situation is if she says no or fights back, Connie eventually gets in the car with him.
There isn’t an explicit scene of the assault, but it’s made clear that Friend rapes Connie. This is a film very much about violence that isn’t explicitly violent — it doesn’t need to be to unmistakably express Connie’s trauma. As he drops her off back at her home, he remarks, “I asked you to go for a ride with me today, and you came. And that’s what happened. Am I right?” Staring at him, she responds, “I don’t want to see you here again. Ever. Understand?” As she walks back up the drive, she’s clearly shaken, but there is also a brief moment of satisfaction that she told him off. Her father is at the top of the drive, unloading the car. When he asks where she was, she smiles and says she went for a walk. The traumatic incident is immediately impossible to discuss. He, smiling, mentions that her family missed her and wished she would have come to the picnic. She can only shakenly respond, “Me, too.”
I’ve spent most of the last year processing trauma from abuse and sexual assault. This was not planned. In the aftermath, sitting down to watch almost anything was a challenge. But around this time, I also started writing film reviews again. This was both a way to get back into writing after about a year break, but also to force myself to watch things — engaging with films for assignments was easier than trying to pick something for fun. What I initially thought was an irrational outlet — watching films that engage directly with sexual violence — is all at once confronting, overwhelming, and a legitimate means of processing. Smooth Talk was the first of these films I watched, back in October 2020, when it was re-released on-demand. I hadn’t even heard of it before, let alone seen it. But the synopsis was compelling, and while in some ways it scared me, watching Connie’s ordinary life plunge off course in a particularly horrific example of the unexpected was also validating. I didn’t fully understand this compulsion, but I’ve come to realize it’s a coping mechanism. Watching at home meant I could pause it, walk away for a while — I had total control. Control in ways I don’t have over what happened. In my film reviews, I’ve danced around directly addressing how impactful they are on my own experience of trauma. Watching and writing is scary but liberating — this piece is me attempting to examine why.
The world becomes horror and no one else can see it. It’s unplanned and shocking in how ordinary the world looks after. My assault doesn’t resemble Connie’s experience, but it’s the tonal shifts of Smooth Talk that most speak to me about my own trauma. I found it reflected both the actual experience and the immediate confusion of how or if to talk about it with anyone. Those tonal shifts, too, relate to a sense of control — of losing control of a situation and needing to find any small way of getting it back. For Connie it’s a very brief moment of disregarding Friend’s attempt at gaslighting. For me it’s writing about sexual violence through a discussion of film.
I published a review on Smooth Talk’s 4K restoration re-release this past October. I didn’t mention my own experience, but the catharsis was still there. I’ve continued to review films about sexual violence, initially thinking I was losing my mind by choosing to expose myself to this topic. Seeing it portrayed on screen in thoughtful and compelling ways has helped me not only to feel less alone but has given me the courage to share my experiences through writing. It’s not that it isn’t triggering — the two scenes I analyzed for this piece were more upsetting on rewatch than I even remembered. I’ve slowly started to place my own experience in these reviews. It still makes me feel incredibly vulnerable or scared of what readers may think, but, so far, the catharsis has outweighed the fear. It’s also taught me to pivot, to take control back any way that I can — even if it’s in seemingly tiny ways.
I’ve studied film my whole adult life. I never would have thought formal analysis could be an outlet for processing trauma. I initially wanted to just write a cultural analysis piece about Smooth Talk. I instead rediscovered why I love film in the first place; even in the most awful of situations, it is possible to see your experience reflected back at you, and for a moment not feel alone. Smooth Talk and Laura Dern’s incredible performance as Connie did that for me and helped me face my fears, move forward, and reclaim empowerment through writing.
