As If: The Crush (Alan Shapiro, 1993)

It's been said that there are only a few essential plot conflicts in literature. The erotic thriller has all of them: Man vs. man, man vs. nature, woman vs. Steven Weber, Michael Douglas vs. the gains of second-wave feminism, and so on. Now, finally, we come to the deadliest conflict of all — man vs. teen, or the “But It Was HER Idea, Officer!!! I Swear!!!” genre of erotic thriller. 

We are gathered here today to memorialize The Crush, the regrettable film debut of Alicia Silverstone, and the even more regrettable film demise of Cary Elwes, who went from a leading man to an infrequently cast bit-part villain between the years 1987 and 1996. Robin Hood: Men In Tights came out this same year, which shows you something about what a heady whirl the early ‘90s must have been for Cary Elwes, and how little judgment he utilized for their duration. 

In this, Cary Elwes was not unlike the character he plays in The Crush, a classic tale of a great man who flies too close to the sun — in this case, by openly lusting after, and making out with, his landlord’s 14-year-old daughter. Yes, I said 14. The script is exceptionally clear on this point. 

Now for the good news: Alicia Silverstone was not actually 14 years old when this movie came out. That would have been inappropriate. Alicia Silverstone, born on October 4, 1976, was a grand total of fifteen years old when The Crush hit theaters in April of 1993. So, yes, she was probably 14 during filming. I don’t know why I tried to allay your concerns! They were valid! 

What I’m trying to convey, here, is that The Crush is out of touch with today’s sexual zeitgeist. However, it was not at all out of touch with the zeitgeist of the erotic thriller in the 1990s. There was a steady firehose of jailbait thrillers aimed at the faces of America’s masturbating public: Poison Ivy (starring a 17-year-old Drew Barrymore) and its many sequels, Devil in the Flesh (starring 25-year-old Rose McGowan, which is still sad for any number of reasons), the Adrian Lyne Lolita remake, which was, well, an Adrian Lyne Lolita remake, and finally something called The Babysitter, also starring Alicia Silverstone, which is surrounded by a halo of one-star Letterboxd reviews muttering about pedophilia, like the corona around a black hole. 

Fun fact: Alicia Silverstone became an emancipated minor during the filming of The Crush, specifically so that she would no longer be protected by child labor laws. Neat!