River’s Edge Review

River's Edge
A highschool student kills his girlfriend and shows her body to his friends. Their differing, often perplexing, reactions and subsequent actions make up the story.

by empire |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1986

Running Time:

99 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

River’s Edge

Although it often gets roped in with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, River's Edge is about a trashier America than Lynch's white-picket-fenced homeland.

Viewed now, it's like an inversion of slick Brat Pack movies, part black comedy, part portrait of desensitised teens (a young Keanu Reeves among them) whose different reactions to the discovery of a murdered friend's corpse shape the story.

Crispin Glover, emphasising EVERY WORD with twitchy hand movements, is one step away from insanity, while Dennis Hopper, dancing with a blow-up sex doll and rubbing his artificial leg, is there already.

A disquieting tale set in the grim realities of trashy America. Some great, often insane performances make it a memorable trip.
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