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Foxes

Catalog Number
4609
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Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
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VHS | N/A | Slipcase
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Foxes (1980)

Additional Information

Additional Information
Foxes is a 1980 American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne (in his feature film directorial debut) and written by Gerald Ayres. The film stars Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid, and Cherie Currie (in her film acting debut). The original music score is composed by Giorgio Moroder, and features the song "On the Radio", sung by Donna Summer.

The film was generally ignored at the box office when it was first released in February 1980. At the time of its release the film received a positive review from prominent film critic Roger Ebert, who stated, "The movie's a rare attempt to provide a portrait of the way teen-agers really do live today in some suburban cultures."[1] It was also one of Jodie Foster's last major roles before she took a four-year hiatus from acting to attend Yale University.

A group of four teenage girls in the San Fernando Valley during the late 1970s have the usual problems. Deirdre (Kandice Stroh) is a disco queen who is fascinated by her sexuality, likes boys and has many boyfriend troubles. Madge (Marilyn Kagan) is unhappily overweight and angry that she is a virgin. Her parents are overprotective, and she has an annoying younger sister. Annie (Cherie Currie) is a teenage runaway who drinks and pops pills, and runs away from her abusive father, a policeman. Jeanie (Jodie Foster) has to take care of them, is fighting with her divorced mother, and is yearning for a closer relationship with her distant father, a tour manager for the rock band Angel. It is implied that her mother had her when just a teenager herself.

The girls believe school is a waste of time, their boyfriends are immature, and that they are alienated from the adults in their lives. All four seem immersed in the decadence of the late 1970s. (The adults in the film seem to be caught up in the craziness of the disco era as well.) The only way for them to loosen up and forget the bad things happening in their lives is to party and have fun. Annie is the least responsible, while Jeanie is ready to grow up and wants to stop acting like a child. Jeanie is most worried about Annie and continually takes risks to try to keep Annie clean and safe. Annie's unstable behavior keeps everyone on edge, and finally leads to her death in a car wreck.

Annie's death brings changes for the rest of the girls. Madge marries Jay (Randy Quaid), an older man who deflowered her, Deirdre no longer acts boy-crazy, and Jeannie graduates from high school and is about to head off to college. After Madge and Jay's wedding, Jeannie visits Annie's grave and smokes a cigarette. With a smile, she muses that Annie wanted to be buried under a pear tree, "not in a box or anything", so that each year her friends could come by, have a pear and say, "Annie's tastin' good this year, huh?"

Foxes details the exploits of four teenage San Fernando Valley girls as they drink, dope and sleep their way into oblivion. Jeanie (Jodie Foster, in a standout performance), the most grounded of the quartet, deals with her burned-out working-student-mother (Sally Kellerman, also excellent) while playing mother to her cohorts; Annie (Cherie Currie), a promiscuous drug-vacuum, attempts to dodge her psychotic police officer-father while partying round the clock; Madge (Marilyn Kagan), an overweight tag-along, who tries desperately to fit in with her wilder friends; and Deirdre (Kandice Stroh); an insecure liar and also-ran. While the performances (particularly the aforementioned) are good, and the direction is solid, the script doesn't seem to go anywhere; maybe that's the point, though, since neither do the characters in their vacuous, instant-gratification-based existences.

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