St. Elmo’s Fire

Directed by Joel Schumacher, St. Elmo’s Fire follows a group of college friends, including Rob Lowe’s Billy, Andrew McCarthy’s Kevin, Emilio Estevez’s Kirby, and Demi Moore’s Jules, as they attempt to sort out their relationships and get their lives together. It’s familiar territory that is, for the most part, employed to underwhelming effect by Schumacher, as the filmmaker, working from a script written with Carl Kurlander, delivers a sporadically compelling yet predominantly disappointing endeavor that grows less and less interesting as time progresses – with the increasingly arms-length vibe perpetuated by an emphasis on oddly unpleasant, unlikeable characters. (Estevez’s Kirby, for example, stalks and harasses Andie MacDowell’s Dale to such an extent that he pursues her and her boyfriend to a vacation spot.) Schumacher’s exceedingly slick directorial sensibilities, as a result, feel completely at odds with the rough-edged portrayal of these less-than-sympathetic protagonists, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that St. Elmo’s Fire‘s general absence of intriguing, compelling subplots contributes heavily to its disastrous lack of forward momentum – with the picture’s saving grace its decent performances and smattering of admittedly effective scenes and digressions. The end result is a mostly superficial misfire that rarely, if ever, becomes the trenchant post-college drama Schumacher has obviously intended, which is a shame, surely, given the potential inherent in the well-worn setup and roster of talented players.

** out of ****