The Beachfront Property
Since American Beach House appeared for the first time, the trailer had promised the same blend of sun, playful flirting, and parties that could turn upside down at any moment. To the audience, the movie appeared to be yet another arrival in the long running, “light cheezy humor” collection of late-night cable TV movies and DVDs. However, beneath the thick layers of booze and bikinis, the movie spoke of freedom, superficiality, and the irony of belonging in a world heavily reliant on illusions.
What made the movie more fascinating was the remarkable combination of the cast. There were cult actors, newcomers stretching their limits, and people with a reputation of disturbing the peace in their private lives.
The Beach House
The plot centers around a group of contestants who win a holiday at a luxurious beach house. Like any other holiday, fun is a central theme of of the getaway. However, the fun quickly takes a turn into darkness, ending in sexual rivalries and comic bewitches. Relationships are made, secrets are revealed, and the “holiday of a lifetime” turns into a test of one’s character.
Satire works in unexpected ways. It highlights loss of self to pleasure-seeking forms of tame enjoyment. The beach houses becomes surreal dwellings conjured from the American dream. The sun-drenched escape holiday unrestricted by obligations takes the almodovaresque whimsy of excess to glorious new heights. As fans go delirious with joy, the airheads, each with their own crazyness, starry-eyed, dream, and as she glances at them, she mirrors the genuine picture fluidly wearing the traditional masquerade of pleasure. The hollow delight of a pleasure-seeking approach is as fragile as the ego cast in self-delusion, and the drive brimming with excess and hedonism itself becomes vaporous with insecurity.
Spen, once permanently reclusive, returns from retirement, while armed with validations from various Alain de Botton champions and has now found the tarquin to the stylish empty gaucherie of her cast systems. The holiday is intertwined with the idea of winning la pura vida, like a jubilant screaming, “Yes!” towards the privately cavernous sky and as she exclaims, “Thank God, the cages are open!” still gets internal validation only to later realize the reward is marred with poetic irony the moment the door to the pets is relieved.
All of the tropes fused together from the indefinable Utopia-like universe jelly fish dream of the 21st century, constructed by distant cosmos void of logics, burn through the gathered vaporous borders, effervescing in sun and lit with
clameor of joy.
The cast that was announced along with the project was a topic of discussion. With actors like Mischa Barton, C. Thomas Howell, and Lorenzo Lamas, each with their own backgrounds that impacted the way the audience perceived their characters was definitely one of the highlights.
Mischa Barton, who will always be remembered as Marissa Cooper from The OC, was still dealing with the starlet image of the troubled star. Her participation in American Beach House was more than just another role to add to a growing list, but a vital step in the painstaking reclamation of her career as chronicled in tabloid after tabloid. The actress felt her life mirrored the character she played which was a young woman immersed in a very busy setting on a beach. It was as if she too was in the middle of a life poised on the verge of being a giant indulgence all the while trying to maintain her self regard.
C. Thomas Howell, a former teen idol of The Outsiders C. Thomas Howell, bore the burden of nostalgia. The 80s audience experienced a surreal feeling when watching Howell in a raunchy beach comedic movie. It was as if an older brother was crashing a college party. However, Howell did manage to bring a warmth and a self understanding which meant he was ready to poke fun on himself and his career.
Then came Lorenzo Lamas, the Falcon Crest and Renegade star who added to the film a generous portion of macho sophistication charm. In reality, Lamas’s own life, multiple marriages, reality TV ventures, coupled with a career shift at every turn, lent his role a certain tomb of realism. It was not just a matter of performing. It was the very essence of a person who had gone through a cycle of chasing glamour and gone through the very jubilations and the meet the very depth of the lows.
Buzz and Trailer Expectations
Long before its launch, American Beach House was the subject of a certain interest. It could be found lurking in the depths of fan forums especially dedicated to late-night cinema. The trailer promised a medley of sex comedy with that of reality TV satire, and there was anticipation that this would follow the a la Porky’s and American Pie, only with a more mature focus.
Within Mischa Barton circles, the trailer raised the question of whether this was the start of a much anticipated comeback, or merely another exercise in fame whoring, American Beach House. On social platforms, she was both accused as well lauded as trying to take a gamble by going too far, yet some felt she was descending into that dark hole of a character from whom she would never recover, the tabloid persona of herself.
Behind the Scenes – Where the Real Story Lived
Unbeknownst to most viewers, the film’s production was anything but calm. The available budget meant the shoot was done in a hurry, leaving no space for retakes. The sets were also far from extravagant. The beaches, which were beautiful from the film set, were problematic due to climate issues, permissions, and rambunctious hordes of people.
Casting, for example, was just as difficult. It was reported that multiple people were considered for the new position, with Barton coming in at a point where she was just starting to revive her career. There were also claims from crew members that said shooting schedules were erratic and that there just as many long pauses due to the weather and the availability of actors.
In his directorial role, and with a reputation of working on B-movies and softcore comedies, he shifted the focus to the camp side of the film and encouraged his actors to perform it with as much over the top self-awareness as possible. Opinions were sharply split; some would argue that it was funnier for it, while others would say that it lacked any subtlety. It did allow American Beach House to stand out in that it did not take itself seriously, even if it was the intention of some viewers to search there for deeper underlying meanings.
The Facets That Lie Beneath The Surface Of The Comedic Themes
The American Beach House is not merely concerned with people hooking up in the beach houses. It deals with masks, the ones we put on in exchanges for acceptance and gratification. Every character, however exaggerated, stood for something: the seductress, the recluse, the jester, the tyrant. And with the course of time, the narratives unfurled, those archetypical masks frazzled to reveal insecurities and yearnings that, let’s face it, the audience might jolly well identify with, to some extent.
The beach house, for the character that Mischa Barton portrays, stood as a self-cage. She walked in with the semblance of power and seductiveness, and then, like Barton’s image and hope, came undone.
Even the comedy, and uniquely, the symbol in the void of the surfer: the constant blundering, confusion, and treachery was ‘over and above’ the jokes; it illustrated a far greater truth: the tragedy that defines the pursuit of self-gratification while bypassing the “emotional fact.” The beach was no longer a paradise, it was a stage; a stage in which the very pretenses were sacrificed to the Sun.
A Film Which Straddled Different Realities
Staying true to the above, the American Beach House was neither a commercial hit, nor the other extreme, a throw away B-movie. It defined the crossroads of the two extremes, part satire, part slipstream, part offhand commentary on the culture it portrayed.
Though the critique was frivolous, the binary entertainment fans captured was multi-dimensional. Some adored it because it was camp and unapologetically so, some simply because it was nostalgic and thrilling to see the actors play new roles. And for those who wore the second pair of glasses, the film became a cheeky nudge towards the fame, beauty, and desire.
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