Something Special

Something Special AKA Willy/Milly AKA I Was a Teenage Boy
November 14, 1986
Concorde Pictures
Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
VHS
B

Yes, this is something special, and yes, it's also something-like-a-Bizarro-Universe-ABC-after-school-special.  Like my other '86 movies, there's something both even-more-offensive-than-intended-at-the-time and kind of sweet about it, although the balance here is more towards sweet than offensive.  It obviously most resembles Soul Man, although the differences are enlightening.  In the C. Thomas Howell movie, the title character wanted something that he couldn't have, so he changed physically to get it, but ended up learning a lot about himself, and others, including the falsity of stereotypes, which yes, also somewhat resembles Tootsie, although Dustin Hoffman didn't do any more extreme body changes than a lot of plucking and shaving.

The title character here, played by Grease 2's  by-then 18-year-old Pamela Segall (who easily passes as 14), doesn't rely on non-FDA-approved drugs, but on magic from the mysterious red-haired little boy next door, Malcolm.  That's an early, although not the earliest, role for twelve-year-old Seth Green.  Among other things, he'd been in The Hotel New Hampshire and Billions for Boris, the latter as Ape-Face to Mary Tanner's Annabel, and Tanner is his big sister here, too, as Stephanie, Willy/Milly Niceman's best friend.  I'd argue that it is in fact a very Seth-Green role, as calmly quirky as anything I've seen him in as an adult.  And unlike the mysterious friend with the tanning pills who disappears once the scene changes to Boston, Malcolm hovers at the edges of this movie, like a pint-sized Prospero, master-minding the plot.

Which makes the movie even weirder than you'd expect for a PG-13 gender-bender.  Things get more explicit than they did in 1940's Turnabout, but never as explicit (or tasteless) as you might expect for an '80s teen comedy.  That's particularly an accomplishment, what with Stephanie seeming intrigued by her friend's new equipment, and Willy's new male friend's fear of being a "faggot," not to mention the airhead who likes Niceman's Scott-Baio-like charm.  (One thing that's never explained is why, in what is apparently Atlanta, GA, everyone has a generic American accent, except for our hero[ine] whose male hormones only bring out more of Segall's New-Yorkiness.)  But even when Milly shows her "willy" to her parents, perfectly played by Patty Duke and John Glover, it's not offensive.  (It happens offscreen.)

The movie might offend LGBT folks, considering how everything is resolved in a relentlessly heterosexual happy ending.  (Stephanie gets the Matthew-Perry look-alike, played by JD Cullum.)  Personally, for its time, and even now, I think it holds up well, and you have to remember that it is basically about a straight teenage girl who wants to be a boy because she thinks boys have things easier.  The acting, writing, and directing are generally solid (if sometimes cheesy).  I don't want to oversell the movie, because I kind of like that it's this obscure little comedy.  But I hope that it will win you over, just like it did me when I saw it on about 25 years ago on cable, from the uber-catchy-'80s opening song, "One Change in My Life," onward.

And, no, I haven't read the book, but I'd really like to.

Once again, don't believe the poster, or video-packaging.  For one thing, the Nicemans don't even have a dog.

Another thing that's special about this movie, is it's the 200th I've reviewed.  In the twenty years covered since Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, I've added no D-s (still the lowest grade), but there's now a D and two more D+s (for three total).  The C-s have increased from 8 to 14, the C's from 10 to 18, and the C+s from 29 to 47.  The B-s have blossomed from 26 to 58, while the B's have also more than doubled, from 12 to 27, and the B+s almost tripled, from 9 to 22! There's still only one A (no A+s of course), but now 5 instead of 3 A-s.  (I realize this only comes to 197 total, but I can't figure out which are the movies I forgot to label.)

Comedy still dominates the genres of course, even with genre-benders like this, with 83.5% of the movies falling totally or partially into that category.  Groucho's 17 appearances (most recently in the Duck Soup clip of Hannah and Her Sisters) keep him at the top of the list of stars of my movies, perhaps permanently.  Paramount produced 31 of my movies, so they're still the top studio, although that may change as we move into the more modern era....