Soundtracking: "Adventures in Babysitting"
Wednesday, September 12, 2018 at 9:00AM by Chris Feil
Ah, midcentury girl group bliss. In previous columns like My Best Friend’s Wedding or last week’s 45 Years, I’ve discussed how this upbeat era of soulpop music has been used to embody romantic tunnel-vision optimism and traditional (sometimes quite gendered) expectations of love inside the melodies. This era’s brand plays an obviously great tool to reveal hidden longings and sadnesses, but what of actually reveling in their joy? Enter lipsync queen Elizabeth Shue in Adventures in Babysitting, truly being all of us when The Crystals’ “And Then He Kissed Me” plays.
Shue’s babysitter Chris jumps into the opening frame just as The Crystals begin, launching into what will be more performance than simple private sing-a-long. She dances around her room dreaming of her anniversary dinner with her boyfriend Mike, surely the only time someone has thought of Bradley Whitford when hearing “And Then He Kissed Me”. Her heartbreak is still to come, but for now she is just dancing in the glory of her hopeful youth, delivering a moment we’ve certainly all recreated alone or otherwise. And if you haven’t: I permit you to live a little.
The preceding steps to marital ritual that The Crystals foretell is mirrored in Chris’ getting-ready ritual, as if one will lead to the other that she’s promised in song. Now when Soundtracking has examined this in other films, it’s more at the conclusion of those expectations. Here Chris dances in uninhibited childish glee, engaging the kind of low-fi theatrics we exhibit as children, and who can blame her.
The opener is its own transporting showstopper sequence, a demonstrative show of the kind of reason-abandoning fun we are in for with the rest of the film, if never again as perfectly distilled into a single perfect moment. “And Then He Kissed Me” is part of the American lexicon, recurring even spectacularly in other films such as Goodfellas. But none of get the song’s intention and how it makes us feel as well as this.
So Chris’ night quickly turns to increasingly degrees of terrible, but along the way she comes of age in a few ways. The veil is removed from her eyes regarding Mike’s terribleness and she proves to be a nurturing and protective leader, and ultimately finds her own voice. And quite literally, since (famously) “nobody leaves this place without singing the blues”. The proverbial “place” and the dive bar that Chris finds herself.
Forced to sing to ensure her escape, Chris is outside of the safety net of The Crystals’ premanicured femininity she can slip into. The fact that she’s a dreadful singer makes her opening lipsync feel like even more of a put on, like she was hiding in a way she cannot now. But self-expression and unleashing her own (however lame) identity is rewarded in the crowd, and not just because you don’t fuck with the babysitter. Chris is finding a new genre as she is beginning to find herself, and we can safely believe it can be as joyful as she had wanted with The Crystals, but a whole lot more complicated and real.
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Reader Comments (9)
About 1,000,000 miles away from her role in LEAVING LAS VEGAS here.
She was adorable in this! Give this woman a smart romantic comedy, STAT!
Oh, the 80's! They sure knew how to entertain us.
Seems like this opening scene is the best one in the film. I would put the VHS tape in just to watch the beginning. The ‘Babysitter Blues’ number seems so embarrassing and stupid. I loved that Edwin Starr’s 25 Miles was put in there.
She seems stuck in wife mode or murdered before the title comes up.
I loved this movie so much as a kid and wanted her to be my babysitter. I LOVED that blues club scene but watching it now...oof, it's a little more awkward to watch, but it also still made me smile.
Absolutely ADORE this film and its soundtrack. Percy Sledge's "Just Can't Stop," which plays over the end credits, is also quite heavenly.
Both numbers are just flat out fun and Elisabeth Shue plays both just right. That holds true for her entire performance she never gets ahead of the character or acts like she knows what's coming down the pike to throw her for a loop next.
Whenever she has a decent role she always delivers so it's a real pity she never broke through to major stardom.
Don't FUCK with the babysitter!
Imagine that in a kid-oriented movie today..
I read the article on the problems with The Help and then read all the love here for this condescending, white-bread movie. Does not compute.