Mad Love [DVD] [1995]

Matt Leland is your run of the mill good looking all American high school kid. He’s intelligent, handsome, has a circle of good time friends and a stable home life although we do learn that his mother has left the family home when he was nine, which leaves Matt more or less responsible for the upbringing of his two younger siblings who are 9 year old twins. Casey Roberts is the sexy looking new girl in school who Matt falls for. After setting up a “chance” meeting Matt and Casey get together and a teenage romance blossoms.

Casey is somewhat of a maverick though, she thinks nothing of faking a fire alarm to get Matt out of an exam so she can talk to him and her driving skills leave a lot to be desired. As things start to get out of hand Matt witnesses Casey and her parents have a blazing row which results in Casey’s parent committing her to a mental hospital.

The second part of the film kicks in with Matt “breaking” Casey out of the secure hospital and the two teenagers begin a cross country run for the Mexican border. Although obviously madly in love all is not well as Casey’s mental problems begin to reoccur with disturbing consequences and Matt soon realises that no matter his love for this girl she does need professional help.

The first half of the film is, at the very best, a standard re-run of a hundred and one teenage high school romances that have gone before. The characters are straight off the shelves at Stereotypes R Us and it’s really not very good. In contrast once Matt and Casey hit the road things improve 100% when for the first time there’s a little bit of chemistry between the two leads and Drew Barrymore comes into her own.

The performance she puts on as the disturbed Casey is excellent and the couple of scenes she has to really turn on the magic are very well acted indeed. Poor old Chris O'Donnell on the other hand just isn’t given any decent material to work with. I really do like Chris, he was great in “The Chamber” and downright excellent in “Scent of a Woman” but here he’s just underused. For example the chance to really develop the unfair relationship between Matt and his father just isn’t investigated deeply enough and it’s this sort of sketching over details that lets the film down.

This film isn’t bad by any stretch but it’s disappointing to see so many missed opportunities and I found it distinctly disappointing.

The acting is outstanding, most of all by Drew Barrymore who plays her unusual and in my view difficult part very convincingly. My only criticism is that I found the ending rather disappointing - I would have preferred a slightly happier ending which would have left me more fulfilled. However I really enjoyed 'Mad Love' and I would definately recommend anyone to buy it because it is a quality film!