Jennifer's Body (Movie)

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Jennifer's Body

This article contains indepth information about the dark comedy/horror film, Jennifer's Body.

Jennifer's Body is a 2009 dark comedy and horror film written by Diablo Cody. The film is directed by Karyn Kusama and stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody. It was released in the United States and Canada on September 18, 2009 with an R-rating. The title is a reference to a song from Hole's album Live Through This. Another song from the album, "Violet", is played over the end credits.

Plot

Nerdy, reserved bookworm Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and arrogant, conceited flag girl Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) have been best friends "since the sandbox", although they share little in common. One night, Jennifer drags Needy to a local dive bar to attend a concert by indie rock band Low Shoulder, with eyes on its blithely evil lead singer, Nikolai Wolf (Adam Brody). While flirting with Wolf, Jennifer insinuates that she is a virgin. A disastrous fire destroys the bar, and Jennifer ends up leaving the bar with the band, who take her into the woods, where she learns that the band is worshiping Satan, and that Wolf intends to use her as a virgin sacrifice in order to gain fame. However, as Jennifer was not a virgin, the demon spirit takes over her body. Later that evening, Jennifer appears at Needy's house, covered in blood, looking vacant, and vomits a trail of "black ferromagnetic fluid." The following morning, Jennifer appears fine, and Needy slowly deduces that Jennifer is eating the bodies of boys to survive.

As Needy's male classmates are steadily killed off in gruesome attacks, the young girl must uncover the truth behind her friend's transformation and find a way to stop the bloodthirsty rampage before it reaches her own boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons). However, Jennifer manages to get to Chip first during the school's dance, and takes him to an abandoned pool. Needy arrives a few minutes later and finds Jennifer with Chip. She attempts to drown Jennifer and as soon as she gets to Chip, he’s already bleeding from a wound on his neck.

As Jennifer suddenly begins floating in the air, Chip stabs Jennifer with a pool net. Jennifer bleeds a little but then escapes. Needy cradles Chip as he dies, both proclaiming their love for one another. Later, Needy attacks Jennifer in her own home, yelling “You killed my boyfriend!" As they fight, Needy pulls out a boxcutter and cuts Jennifer twice across her stomach, which doesn't affect her. Needy rips off Jennifer's BFF necklace, which stuns Jennifer who begins to fall down to her bed. Needy comes down with the boxcutter stabbing Jennifer in the heart, and sets Jennifer free. After Jennifer dies, her mother comes and finds Needy on top of Jennifer's bloody body.

Needy is committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. Since she was bitten by Jennifer during their final fight and survived she acquired some of Jennifer’s powers. With these powers, Needy escapes the facility and tracks down Low Shoulder, brutally killing them for turning her best friend Jennifer into a demon and causing all the deaths.

Cast

Megan Fox as Jennifer Check
Amanda Seyfried as Anita "Needy" Lesnicky
Johnny Simmons as Chip Dove
Adam Brody as Nikolai Wolf
J. K. Simmons as Mr. Wroblewski
Kyle Gallner as Colin Gray
Amy Sedaris as Toni Lesnicky
Cynthia Stevenson as Mrs. Dove
Carrie Genzel as Mrs. Check
Juan Riedinger as Dirk
Chris Pratt as Officer Roman Duda
Juno Ruddell as Officer Warzak
Keegan Sigurnjak as Meek School Nerd
Aman Johal as Ahmet from India

Production

Pre-production

Jennifer's Body is the follow-up to writer and producer Diablo Cody's and Jason Reitman's collaboration efforts on Juno. In October 2007, Fox Atomic pre-emptively purchased the rights to Cody's script with Megan Fox to star. Peter Rice, who oversees both Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic, brought in the project as Fox Searchlight had previously distributed Cody's film, Juno. Mason Novick and Reitman's producing parter Dan Dubiecki signed as producers in November 2007 with plans to produce the film under Hard C, which is housed at Fox Searchlight. Reitman commented, "We want to make unusual films, and anything that turns a genre on its ear interests Dan and I." Karyn Kusama was announced as director in January 2008.

In February 2008, a cease and desist was given to a writer at CC2K.com after they posted an advance script review for the film. The Latino Review also posted an advance review. At the time CC2K.com received their cease and desist order, questions were raised why Latino Review's largely positive script review was allowed to stay posted while CC2K was being forced by Fox Searchlight to remove their mainly negative coverage. Although Latino Review was later asked to remove their review, numerous other websites and blogs have published their own critiques of the script.

Casting

Megan Fox was in negotiations to star as Jennifer since the film was announced in 2007, and was officially cast in October 2007. In February 2008, Amanda Seyfried was cast as Needy, the "plain Jane" best friend to Fox's character. Chud.com reported that the filmmakers were looking at actual rock band members Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte to portray male lead Nikolai Wolf. Also considered was actor Chad Michael Murray. In March 2008, actor Johnny Simmons was reportedly cast as Nikolai. However, Adam Brody was officially cast in the role of Nikolai, while Simmons was then given the role of Chip.

Filming

In late 2007, Fox Atomic had plans to film Jennifer's Body before a possible writer's strike. However, when the Writers Guild of America strike began, shooting was then moved to March 7, 2008 in Burnaby, British Columbia, specifically at Robert Burnaby Park near Cariboo Hill Secondary School. Some of the scenes, particularly those situated in a school setting, were filmed in local Vancouver-area schools, such as Vancouver Technical Secondary School, Langley Secondary School and University Hill Secondary School.

Reception

The film has received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding a 43% overall approval rating with critics based on 102 reviews, with a generally negative 36% approval rating from "top" critics based on 25 reviews. The site's general consensus is that "Jennifer's Body features occasionally clever dialogue but the horror/comic premise fails to be either funny or scary enough to satisfy". At Metacritic, the film holds a generally mixed score of 47/100, based on 28 reviews, while IGN gives the film 2.5 stars out of 5.

Film critic Roger Ebert enjoyed the film, dubbing it a "Twilight for boys" and saying "as a movie about a flesh-eating cheerleader, it's better than it has to be". He gave the film three out of four stars. Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film three out of four stars as well. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone stated it is "Hot! Hot! Hot!" and that "Director Karyn Kusama is torn between duty to female empowerment and slasher convention". Dana Stevens of Slate praised the film for being "luscious and powerful, sexy and scary, maddening at times, but impossible to stop watching" and a "wicked black comedy with unexpected emotional resonance, one of the most purely pleasurable movies of the year so far". The Miami Herald's Rene Rodriguez likened the film's "[effective exploitation] of the genre as a metaphor for adolescent angst, female sexuality and the strange, sometimes corrosive bonds between girls who claim to be best friends" to Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie. A.O. Scott of The New York Times concluded "the movie deserves — and is likely to win — a devoted cult following, despite its flaws" and "[these flaws] are mitigated by a sensibility that mixes playful pop-culture ingenuity with a healthy shot of feminist anger".

Giving a partially negative review of the film was Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York, who said the "movie has a centerfold sheen to it — and some lesbianic soft-core flirtation to match — as its plot dives deeply into Twilight-esque heavy-melo meltdown in the last act" and that "Cody throws one too many losses at Needy; the screenwriter loses her satiric way about halfway through. But for a while, this has real fangs". Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post said, "There's a certain kooky, kinky fun to be had with "Jennifer's Body" but that "admittedly, this is the stuff of lurid adolescent distraction, not great cinema" and "is strictly a niche item but provides a goofy, campy bookend to Drag Me to Hell on the B-movie shelf. Watch it, forget it, move on". San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub stated, "Enjoy the film for its witty dialogue and fun performances, but know that there isn't a single good scare. An episode of Murder, She Wrote has more thrills." Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun described the only "perfect aspect" of Jennifer's Body as being its title. "No one is going to like this movie for its brain," he said. Claudia Puig of USA Today stated of the film, "Jennifer's Body is not as hot as you hope it would be", and Joe Neumaier of New York Daily News said, "Words and story are still the lifeblood of a movie, and Jennifer's Body is filled like a Twinkie with half-fleshed-out ideas."

Box office

Though the film was expected to pull in a significant number of the late teenage/young adult audience, particularly males aged 17 and older, it earned a "disappointing" $2.8 million on its opening Friday and $6.8 million its opening weekend; the film placed #5, while 3D animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs placed #1 with 30.1 million. Produced for $16 million, Jennifer's Body attracted audiences 51% female, with 70% of patrons under age 25.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was released by Fueled by Ramen on August 25, 2009 and featured previously released music by various indie rock and alternative rock bands such as White Lies, Florence + The Machine, Silversun Pickups and Black Kids. It also features pop punk band All Time Low. The album also features new songs from pop rock artists such as Cobra Starship and Panic at the Disco. The first single from the soundtrack is "New Perspective" by Panic at the Disco. The album received a 3 out of 5 review from Allmusic, who praised the album's mixture of pop rock and indie rock.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jennifer's Body" and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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