Frankly, I'm rather glad I didn't read a single review here before watching the movie. Several reviewers evidently take this movie as a convenient platform from which to bash the Religious Right for not adhering to the Christian-hating Left's benighted sexual libertinism. To be sure, Skipped Parts is rather brutally frank about all matters of sexuality, but as at least one reviewer pointed out already, the pro-abortion and anti-family bigots of the Left will find very little of this frankness to be at all friendly to their despicable ideology. Actually, one would be hard-pressed to find any "message" to this movie at all, as it is more a reflection of our times than an effort to shape them.
This brings me to one of the real strikes against this movie: though set in the 1960s around the time of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the protagonists (Sam, Lydia, and to a lesser degree her cousin Delores) all have ridiculously anachronistic points of view for people from the 1960s, while the antagonists (Sam Callahan, Dothan Talbot, Coach Howard Stebbins, to a lesser degree Maurey's parents, and to an even lesser degree the rest of the students and townspeople) are all basically contemporary Hollywood caricatures of people from the early 1960s. Someone is clearly guilty of either executive meddling or lazy writing.
Yes, there were "easy" girls and single mothers back in the 1960s, but none of them would have thought and behaved the way Lydia does, nor would society have dealt with them so mildly if they had; nobody would even have considered rolling out a welcome wagon for a single mother and her illegitimate child in the first place, nor allowed their children to hang around with Sam. Moreover, in those days when the "unwritten law" was still somewhat in effect, the threatened violence against Sam, played for laughs in this movie, would have been no joke. He would be fortunate if Maurey's aggrieved father didn't decide to invite him to a "shotgun wedding" ceremony that was all shotgun and no wedding.
As for the much-remarked hypocrisy of several of the characters (particularly Coach Stebbins and Maurey's mother), I'll concede that stereotypes — yes, even Hollywood's — are not entirely without foundation; hypocrisy and hypocrites we have with us always. Anyone who thinks this hypocrisy is offered as any kind of justification for Lydia's evil beliefs and behaviors, however, would do well to reconsider. Sincerity by itself, as Lydia demonstrates, is no virtue at all, and hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In this movie, vice pays a very grim tribute indeed to virtue in several truly horrifying scenes concerning Lydia's attempt to cover up Sam and Maurey's mistake by murdering their unborn baby.
Most horrifying of all is the scene in which Sam pleads that it's his baby too; doesn't he get any say in what happens to his child? No, Lydia insists, he doesn't. In fact, nothing he says can sway her, though he promises to take responsibility, get a job, marry the girl, do anything if only his mother will let them keep the baby. In the end, it's hypocrisy which proves to be both a deus ex machina and diabolus ex machina, as Maury's mother happens to be down at the very same illegal murder mill having her love child with Coach Stebbins butchered, traumatizing both mother and daughter when they meet and leading to a very awkward moment between Sam and Stebbins as well. How can I *not* see this as being a thoroughly damning portrayal of abortion and all of the cruel baby-butchering child-snatching misandrists calling themselves "feminists" who support it?
No, unlike some reviewers here, I would definitely *not* show this movie to teenagers as a part of their sex education. If we must have entertainment while educating our kids about sex, we have plenty of other more informative and positive movies that would serve the purpose far better: The Blue Lagoon (1980) and 17 Again (2009) come to mind. Honestly, did that gross-out moment with Lydia and the sock, or any of the references to oral sex (which also quite understandably grossed out Sam and Maurey) need to be in this movie at all? It would have been far more enjoyable to watch without them. Some movies really should be exclusively restricted to adults even if some of the main characters are kids, and this is one of them.
If anything, Lydia's efforts to expose Sam to too much of our unrated world too soon is a precautionary tale, not an example to be followed as some of the more foolish reviewers here seem to believe. Yes, Lydia does seem to be a bit more responsible by the end, having gotten a job and a man to support her so she won't end up being another welfare leech (the way so many single mothers these days are), but it's not clear that she's really learned her lesson; neither she nor anyone else shows any remorse for having nearly murdered her granddaughter, and there's no wedding scene, so it's not clear whether she's actually married to Hank even by common law.
Ultimately, however, the reason I don't like this movie very much is that the story is actually rather depressing. Skipped Parts is a comedy, yes, but a black comedy full of disgusting behavior leading to mood whiplash and coming to an only partially satisfying ending. I sympathized with Sam, laughed at the funny parts and was duly horrified at the horrifying parts. On the whole, I don't regret watching it, and I think anyone who can take a few revolting scenes and characters in stride and doesn't mind a few anachronistic attitudes could benefit from seeing this movie. All the same, I'd rather not see this movie again any time soon, if ever. It might be worth a rental, but the jury's still out on whether it will ever be worth a purchase.
This brings me to one of the real strikes against this movie: though set in the 1960s around the time of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the protagonists (Sam, Lydia, and to a lesser degree her cousin Delores) all have ridiculously anachronistic points of view for people from the 1960s, while the antagonists (Sam Callahan, Dothan Talbot, Coach Howard Stebbins, to a lesser degree Maurey's parents, and to an even lesser degree the rest of the students and townspeople) are all basically contemporary Hollywood caricatures of people from the early 1960s. Someone is clearly guilty of either executive meddling or lazy writing.
Yes, there were "easy" girls and single mothers back in the 1960s, but none of them would have thought and behaved the way Lydia does, nor would society have dealt with them so mildly if they had; nobody would even have considered rolling out a welcome wagon for a single mother and her illegitimate child in the first place, nor allowed their children to hang around with Sam. Moreover, in those days when the "unwritten law" was still somewhat in effect, the threatened violence against Sam, played for laughs in this movie, would have been no joke. He would be fortunate if Maurey's aggrieved father didn't decide to invite him to a "shotgun wedding" ceremony that was all shotgun and no wedding.
As for the much-remarked hypocrisy of several of the characters (particularly Coach Stebbins and Maurey's mother), I'll concede that stereotypes — yes, even Hollywood's — are not entirely without foundation; hypocrisy and hypocrites we have with us always. Anyone who thinks this hypocrisy is offered as any kind of justification for Lydia's evil beliefs and behaviors, however, would do well to reconsider. Sincerity by itself, as Lydia demonstrates, is no virtue at all, and hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In this movie, vice pays a very grim tribute indeed to virtue in several truly horrifying scenes concerning Lydia's attempt to cover up Sam and Maurey's mistake by murdering their unborn baby.
Most horrifying of all is the scene in which Sam pleads that it's his baby too; doesn't he get any say in what happens to his child? No, Lydia insists, he doesn't. In fact, nothing he says can sway her, though he promises to take responsibility, get a job, marry the girl, do anything if only his mother will let them keep the baby. In the end, it's hypocrisy which proves to be both a deus ex machina and diabolus ex machina, as Maury's mother happens to be down at the very same illegal murder mill having her love child with Coach Stebbins butchered, traumatizing both mother and daughter when they meet and leading to a very awkward moment between Sam and Stebbins as well. How can I *not* see this as being a thoroughly damning portrayal of abortion and all of the cruel baby-butchering child-snatching misandrists calling themselves "feminists" who support it?
No, unlike some reviewers here, I would definitely *not* show this movie to teenagers as a part of their sex education. If we must have entertainment while educating our kids about sex, we have plenty of other more informative and positive movies that would serve the purpose far better: The Blue Lagoon (1980) and 17 Again (2009) come to mind. Honestly, did that gross-out moment with Lydia and the sock, or any of the references to oral sex (which also quite understandably grossed out Sam and Maurey) need to be in this movie at all? It would have been far more enjoyable to watch without them. Some movies really should be exclusively restricted to adults even if some of the main characters are kids, and this is one of them.
If anything, Lydia's efforts to expose Sam to too much of our unrated world too soon is a precautionary tale, not an example to be followed as some of the more foolish reviewers here seem to believe. Yes, Lydia does seem to be a bit more responsible by the end, having gotten a job and a man to support her so she won't end up being another welfare leech (the way so many single mothers these days are), but it's not clear that she's really learned her lesson; neither she nor anyone else shows any remorse for having nearly murdered her granddaughter, and there's no wedding scene, so it's not clear whether she's actually married to Hank even by common law.
Ultimately, however, the reason I don't like this movie very much is that the story is actually rather depressing. Skipped Parts is a comedy, yes, but a black comedy full of disgusting behavior leading to mood whiplash and coming to an only partially satisfying ending. I sympathized with Sam, laughed at the funny parts and was duly horrified at the horrifying parts. On the whole, I don't regret watching it, and I think anyone who can take a few revolting scenes and characters in stride and doesn't mind a few anachronistic attitudes could benefit from seeing this movie. All the same, I'd rather not see this movie again any time soon, if ever. It might be worth a rental, but the jury's still out on whether it will ever be worth a purchase.