Marc Copage | Through the Shattered Lens

Poor Jennifer Jason Leigh!

Seriously, whenever you watch any of the movies that Leigh made early in her career, your heart just goes out for. She was always either getting stalked or getting abused or getting lost or struggling through a pregnancy scare. In Fast Times At Ridgemont High, she actually did get pregnant and had to go to the abortion clinic on her own after Mike Damone failed to keep his promise to be there for her. It doesn’t get quite as bad as that for her in 1981’s I Think I’m Having A Baby but she still has to put up with a lot.

In I Think I’m Having A Baby, Jennifer Jason Leigh plays 15 year-old Laurie, who is not only socially awkward but also has the worst haircut that has even been inflected on an otherwise attractive person. Laurie idolizes her older cousin, Phoebe (Helen Hunt). Phoebe is dating a lunkhead jock named Peter (Shawn Stevens). Phoebe does Peter’s homework for him and Peter complains that Phoebe won’t go beyond some mild making out in his car. That’s the kind of relationship that they have. On the night of his birthday, Peter and Phoebe have an argument at the outdoor party that Phoebe went out of her way to set up. Peter drives off in his car, little realizing that the shy Laurie is hiding in the backseat. When Peter notices Laurie there, he pulls over and starts talking about how difficult (cue a massive eye roll from me) his life is. By the end of the night, Peter has revealed himself to be a whiny jerk and Laurie is no longer a virgin.

Soon afterwards, Laurie starts to feel ill. Her nerdy best friend, Marsha (Samantha Paris), thinks that Laurie might have the flu. Laurie, however, fears that it’s definitely not the flu. When Laurie tells Peter that she thinks she might be pregnant, Peter freaks out. He tells her to take care of it and makes it clear that he has no interest in being a father. Marsha says that she can’t understand why anyone would want to have a baby. She announces that she’s never going to have one. Instead, she’ll just adopt a dog. That really doesn’t help out Laurie, though. Eventually, Marsha and Laurie head to the clinic to discover whether or not Laurie is actually pregnant.

Meanwhile, Laurie’s little sister, Carrie (Tracey Gold), makes the mistake of letting her pet rabbits all socialize with each other. Carrie learns a lesson about the importance of keeping a safety barrier between male and female rabbits. At school, the students smirk as Mr. Fenning (David Birney) ties to teach a sexual education class. One of the students is played by future Breakfast Club member Ally Sheedy, making her television acting debut by uttering a handful of lines. The ultimate message is that no one knows anything and all of the education that they’ve gotten so far has been inadequate.

It’s pretty heavy-handed and some of the acting is a bit less than award-worthy. (Samantha Paris shouts nearly every line that she has.) But Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a good performance as Laurie, perfectly capturing not only Laurie’s fear of being pregnant but also the sadness that comes from being painfully shy. Your heart breaks for her when you watch this film. If nothing else, hopefully Laurie realizes, by the time the end credits roll, that she can do far better than Peter. For that matter, so can Phoebe. While everyone has a bright future ahead of them, Peter is destined to spend the rest of his life wondering why he peaked at 17.

And that’s the way it should be.

First broadcast in 1981, The Wave stars Bruce Davison as Ben Ross, a high school social studies teacher who conducts a social experiment.

Frustrated by the fact that he can’t answer his students questions of how the German people could have allowed the Holocaust to occur, Ben decides to teach his students a lesson. He starts by introducing a bunch of seemingly arbitrary rules to his classroom, concerning the proper way for students to sit at their desks and to address the teacher. Ben is somewhat surprised to see how quickly his students adapt to the new rules, even taking pleasure in showing how quickly and efficiently they can follow orders. The next day, Ben tells his students that they are now members of The Wave, a national youth organization with membership cards and a secret salute.

And that is when all Hell breaks loose. Ben only meant to show his students what it’s like to be a member of a mass movement but the students take The Wave far more seriously than Ben was expecting. Soon, other students are joining The Wave. When the popular football players announce that they are a part of The Wave, others are quick to flock to the organization. The formerly likable David turns into a fanatic about bringing people into the organization. Robert, a formerly unpopular student, revels in his new job of reporting anyone who deviates from the rules of The Wave. When a student reporter writes an article that is critical of the organization, she and the school paper are targeted. Has Ben’s social experiment spiraled out of control?

42 years after it was originally produced, The Wave remains a powerful and sobering look at how people can be manipulated into doing things as a mob that they would never do as an individual. If anything, the film feels more relevant today than it probably did in 1981. The character of Robert, in particular, is a familiar one. He’s someone with no self-esteem who latches onto a movement and finds his identity by taking down others and accusing them of failing to follow the rules. One can find people like Robert all over social media, searching through old posts for any example of wrongthink that they can broadcast all through their social world. It’s tempting to smirk at how quickly the members of The Wave sacrificed their freedom and their ability to think for themselves but it’s no different from what we see happening in the real world every day. (Indeed, if the film had been made just two or three years ago, The Wave would probably be the people policing whether or not the rest of us were observing quarantine and wearing our facemasks correctly.) People like to feel that they belong to something, even if that means sacrificing their humanity in the process.

Featuring a good performance from Bruce Davison as the well-meaning teacher who is both fascinated and terrified by the experiment that he’s set in motion, The Wave can be viewed below: