Taglines: In everyone’s life there’s a friendship you never forget.
That Night movie storyline. In 1961 Long Island Alice is just that bit younger than her playmates. She doesn’t quite understand yet about some grownup things and is teased a lot. Her heroine is anyway Sheryl, the teenager over the road who has a succession of boyfriends. Alice even copies her perfume and favourite records, though she has never spoken to her. When Sheryl’s father dies suddenly and she takes up with Rick, who is viewed with horror by all the parents around, she and Alice become firm friends as they try to keep the romance going.
That Night is a 1992 American coming-of-age romantic drama film written and directed by Craig Bolotin, and starring C. Thomas Howell and Juliette Lewis. It is based on the novel of the same name by Alice McDermott. This film is notable for the fact that both Eliza Dushku (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) and Katherine Heigl (of Grey’s Anatomy fame) made their first film appearances in it, sharing a few scenes. Dushku was eleven years old at that time, and Heigl was thirteen.
About the Story
In 1961 Long Island, Alice Bloom (Eliza Dushku) is a ten-year-old girl who is trying to understand how love works. She is infatuated with the girl across the street, 17-year-old Sheryl O’ Connor (Juliette Lewis). She often looks at her from across the street, as their bedroom windows are level with each other. Alice starts to copy every detail about Sheryl, including her perfume and the record she listens to.
As Alice and her mother pick up her father from work, she notices Sheryl speeding up to the train station to pick up her own father. She admires the affection that Sheryl’s father gives her, as she doesn’t receive the same from her own father. She then tells her mother about how amazing Sheryl is: how she could travel long distances in her car in no time at all, how she was slapped in the face by one of her Catholic School teachers and never cried, and how she ran the mile in gym and never broke a sweat. Alice’s mother does not believe what she is saying.
One day she goes bowling with some of her friends and is ridiculed by them when she rolls a ball into the lane next to hers, and her friends award her with a score of “minus zero” and call her a dufus. Reeling from comments made to her, she immediately becomes excited when Sheryl walks into the bowling alley along with a group of guys trying to win her affection. Sheryl, seemingly innocent and moral, rejects their advances.
She rings the bell at the front desk, and from under the counter a boy named Rick (C. Thomas Howell) appears. They are instantly attracted to each other. As Alice continues to bowl with her friends, she constantly watches Sheryl’s every move. Her friends then mention that they think Sheryl’s breasts are fake, because they do not move. Alice insists they are real, and says that they are friends. They make her go over to talk to Sheryl and get Sheryl to take a drink of her soda, thereby proving that they are friends. But before she can get there, Rick pages her to come back to the desk, and a police officer tells her that her father just died.
During the funeral, Sheryl is obviously upset. As she is sitting in the bathroom, she notices her bowling shoes on the floor and goes to the bowling alley to return them. There she finds Rick repairing one of the pin returns. He tells her they are closed, and she starts crying over her father. After some conversation, Rick walks Sheryl home, and leads to their first kiss. This is observed by Alice, who earlier had spotted Sheryl running to go to the bowling alley. The next day Rick comes back with his gang, and they take Sheryl to the beach, where they have oysters and tequila and Sheryl pours her heart out over her father’s death. They spend the whole day and night together.
All is not well, however. Sheryl’s mother disapproves of the relationship between her and Rick. Eventually, she bars her from seeing him, and the neighborhood begins to revile Rick. Sheryl refused to stop seeing him however, even as her mother attempts to put her on lockdown. She gets her chance again as she addresses a coughing Alice laying in her grass. Alice was victim of a prank at a boy’s birthday party during a game of spin the bottle.
Sheryl babysits Alice (with Alice’s parents being out, as they had dropped her off at the party), and the two begin to take root in their friendship, with Sheryl imparting wisdom about the boy’s bullying of her being typical traits of young boys who crush on young girls. Alice offers also to help Sheryl sneak out and see Rick. The three of them spend much of the night together which includes bringing Alice to seedy places like dive bars and under the boardwalk. She also makes a record in a booth detailing everything that happened that night. Sheryl suggests that she bury it in a time capsule to dig up many years later.
Alice continues to help Sheryl and Rick hide their relationship. She goes to the bowling alley to explain to Rick why Sheryl couldn’t make it to see him one day, even yelling at her father in his anger as he advises her to stay away from him, feeling that her father didn’t understand love. It’s revealed that Sheryl is pregnant. Her mother decides to send her to an unwed mother’s home 300 miles or so from Long Island. Despite Sheryl’s protests (including her suggestion of abortion, and still wanting to see Rick), she eventually does what her mother says.
Rick repeatedly calls Sheryl’s house, only to have her mother tell him not to call, and hang up on him. Finally, he and his gang drive to her house, where Rick pleads to speak to Sheryl. This captures the attention of most of the immediate neighbors. Her mother informs him that Sheryl has gone, and that he is to leave as well. He refuses to believe her (looking at Sheryl’s still-open window), and pushes her aside to go into the house. The neighborhood fathers then rush to help her, and a brawl ensues between Rick’s gang and them, with Rick getting hit in the head with a snow shovel. He spends a week in jail, although it’s assumed that no serious charges are filed.
Alice becomes withdrawn from the incident. Once she walks in on her parents listening to the record she made that night, she decides to run away. She ends up under the boardwalk, where Rick finds her, and the two talk. Reluctantly, Rick agrees to drive upstate with Alice to meet Sheryl at the unwed mother’s home. After some bartering with a few other occupants of the home, she is snuck inside to meet Sheryl and arranges for her to sneak out to a restaurant at midnight to meet Rick.
The two meet, but Sheryl seems to have come to an understanding regarding her situation. She decides that she wants to put the baby up for adoption. She also suggests that her situation is too complicated for a young woman such as herself to realistically see through a life with Rick, a baby, and no money or viable career opportunities for either of them. Rick is upset, and hands her an engagement ring that he planned to propose with, suggesting that she could pawn it.
Alice then talks to Sheryl, asking her what happened to her earlier views regarding how nothing could stop true love. Sheryl tells her that she is simply too young to understand. As Alice suggests the three of them running away together, Sheryl tells Alice that she mustn’t leave her loved ones. As Alice is put on a bus back to Long Island and stares out the window at Rick, Sheryl comes out, and the two embrace.
That Night (1992)
Directed by: Craig Bolotin
Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Juliette Lewis, Helen Shaver, Eliza Dushku, J. Smith-Cameron, John Dossett, Katherine Heigl, Sarah Joy Stevenson, Kathryn Meisle
Screenplay by: Craig Bolotin
Production Design by:
Cinematography by: Bruce Surtees
Film Editing by: Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
Costume Design by: Carol Ramsey
Set Decoration by: Susan Kaufman
Art Direction by: Jeremy Conway
Music by: David Newman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature theme, sensuality and sex related dialogue.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: August 27, 1992
Hits: 225
