Foxfire

Plot synopsis:
Foxfire is narrated by Maddie Wirtz, a high school senior living a rather normal life in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Maddie is in control of her life, with a boyfriend, as well as plans to go to art school. One day in science class, the students are watching the teacher Mr. Buttinger try to make Rita Faldes dissect a frog. A mysterious and beautiful leather jacket-clad "new student" stands up to Mr. Buttinger and releases Rita's frog. When Mr. Buttinger sentences them both to detention, the drifter reveals that she's not a new student after all and escapes through the same window as the frog.
Later, in the girls' restroom, the drifter and some other girls are listening to Rita describe Mr. Buttinger's untoward advances. When the drifter says the only way to stop the teacher is to stick together, the only girls to stay are Rita, Violet and Maddie. When detention time comes, Mr. Buttinger indeed begins his advances toward Rita, but is startled by Violet's entry. When Maddie and the drifter come in soon after, he realizes the situation is becoming serious. The girls confront the teacher about his abuse and they become involved in a physical altercation, which ends when the ordinarily shy Rita slams his face against a lab bench and tells him "if you ever put your hands on me again, I'm gonna snip your little nuts off with my toenail clippers." At this point Goldie Goldberg walks in, and joins the assault by declaring "this is great; Buttinger is such a fuck." The girls run from the school and then decide to go home.
At Maddie's house, Maddie is surprised by a knock at the window, which turns out to be the stranger from the earlier assault, there to return Maddie's dropped address book. The girl tells Maddie she's a drifter who got kicked out of school "for thinking for herself." Maddie agrees to let her sleep on the floor. The next morning, Maddie catches up with the girl on a bridge. The girl tells Maddie her name is "Legs" and brings Maddie's art supplies up onto the bridge. Maddie, who is afraid of heights, can't join her. A truck startles Legs, who drops the art portfolio over the edge of the bridge. Legs climbs over the edge of the bridge to retrieve the bag, which deeply impresses Maddie. As they part, Maddie tells Legs of an abandoned house up the river where Legs could stay.
At school, the girls are called in to the principal's office, where their claims of sexual harassment fall on deaf ears and they are suspended for three weeks. The girls are escorted off campus and Maddie is not allowed to retrieve her art school portfolio. Instead of going home with the news of their suspension, they all decide to go to the abandoned house up the river. There they meet Legs, who suggests they break into the school to get Maddie's portfolio.
The girls sneak into the high school through a vent and go into the art room. While the other girls are busy collecting Maddie's work, Goldie is put off by an unflattering Polaroid and moves into a side room to smoke a joint. She throws her match into a pile of oily rags, starting a fire and setting off the sprinklers. The girls have to escape the police who come to investigate and eventually reconvene at the house.
Back at the house, Legs decides to commemorate the night by giving herself a tattoo of a flame on her breast. One by one, the other girls ask Legs to give them the same tattoo.
This act dictates the final bond that ties the girls together. However, things start to go terribly wrong. First, Maddie is threatened by a group of jocks who dislike the idea of the girls reporting their abusive teacher, since he is also the coach of their football team.
During an attempt to "teach her" a lesson, she is rescued by the rest of the group and they steal Dana's (the main bully) car, with Legs driving. Eventually, after running into some cops on patrol, they continue their run after Legs refuses to stop, leading to an accident which in turn leads to Legs being put in a correctional facility. The girls continue on, but aren't as close-knit anymore.
Goldie gives in to the pressure and runs away from home. Maddie somehow finds her and brings her back to the abandoned house. After Legs gets out, she returns to the "hang out" and is shocked to see Goldie's state. She, together with Maddie, go to Goldie's (adoptive) parents home, demanding 10 grand for rehabilitation purposes for Goldie. When her father refuses, Legs threatens him with his own gun and takes him hostage in the house, where they tie him to a chair and pressure him for the money.
Goldie, oblivious to this, is startled to see her dad and calls out to him in surprise. This however, surprises Rita, who accidentally shoots Goldie's father in the chest. Chaos ensues, but the girls keep calm and decide to take him to the hospital. Rita drives the others, while Maddie and Legs stay back.
The scene toward the end of the film centers around Legs and her relationship with Maddie. Legs is done with her current circumstances and surroundings and is shown walking the highway again, looking for a ride. It is this same highway upon where Maddie almost lost her art portfolio. Maddie finds Legs and calls out to her in an attempt to make her stay. Legs is hesitant, but holds to her decision to leave. Upon Maddie's disappointment, Legs asks her to come along. After thinking for a while about her future, Maddie decides to stay but assures Legs that she will never forget her. Legs, hopeful that Maddie will choose to come along, is slightly overwhelmed, but understands and reciprocates, by telling Maddie she will always be in her heart.
As Legs boards a truck that stopped, Maddie watches it disappear down the road and walks over to climb the bridge (in the same way that Legs did, thus conquering her fear of heights. In a voice-over, we hear that Maddie has graduated high school, gotten accepted into art school, and traveled half way around the world, stopping at airports and bus stops along the way. She has not seen Legs again, but she meets the others once in a while and they get together to reminisce about the past.

Tags: violence

Review:
An excellent film!.
I have not read the novel, nor seen the 1996 version, so I cannot base my review on any sort of comparison.
Filled with newcomers, this film really surprised me.
I was hooked from the first scene and my interest continued for the length of the film.
This is a long film, over two hours but it did not feel like it.
The performances were outstanding, especially by the actress portraying legs.
With so many lousy films and independent attempts that are failures, it was a pleasure to be rewarded with this viewing.
I would guess that several promising careers have now begun.
Kudos to all involved with the making of this film!.
less than impressed.
Laurent Cantet director of the Cannes palm D'or and Oscar Nominated "The Class" latest effort "Foxfire" did little to impress me a film about a group of teenage girls in upstate New York in 1950's who call them selves "Foxfire" they are angry and out to cause trouble and who can blame them I blame the director of this film and the dialect coach and casting director.
The ensemble performance by the female cast played out like amateur actors in a B film the dialogue sounded to Canadian who can blame Laurent Cantet he is French he probably couldn't notice the difference and the dialect coach must have been deaf.
The film itself stretched out its welcome running 2hours and 20minutes I felt the film was going no where after watching it for 90 minutes.
And the fact that the film won a best actress prize at The San Sebastian International Film Festival Katie Coseni the jury must not have had much to choose from to give a best actress award..
2 hours and 15 minutes I'll never get back..
This film was only marginally a 2...it really deserved a 1.
A few of the actresses were decent some of the time...but overall this was a total waste of film, and a total waste of my time to watch.
There was nothing about the plot or the characterizations that made me want to keep going after the first 30 minutes...but I kept persevering, although I should have gone with my first impulses and stopped then.
The only thing in the whole movie which wasn't a waste of time was the soundtrack--some good choices of more obscure '50s jump boogie contrasting with the more mainstream pop of the era.
As for the more recent music in the movie, I don't have anything good to say about Taylor Kirk except that he seems a Leonard Cohen wannabe.
Poor scripting, marginal acting, bad accents...and although I've never read the Joyce Carol Oates book on which it was based, I know now why I don't want to.
I've also never seen the earlier movie based on the book, but I certainly saw nothing in this movie that would make me want to watch another crack at the same material.
If you have any interest in good filmmaking, don't waste your time watching this trash..
Not as good as the original.
One of my favourite stories about a group of teenage girls who form a group to get back at their society, which they feel is very unfair towards them.
This film is a much more realistic adaptation to the novel by Joyce Carol Oates than the original 1996 version.
I love the storyline and was very excited to watch this film, having seen the original and read the book.
However the acting is no where near as good as the 1996 version (you must be mad to make a new version of an Angelina Jolie movie?!), and I would also suggest reading the novel before watching, as it makes everything a lot clearer.
If I had not read the novel prior to watching, there are some parts which I doubt I would have understood properly.
Definitely recommend this film to anyone who loves a film with a great female lead..
Better than original.
Definitely the 2012 version of Foxfire is much better than the 1996 Version and more faithful to the book.
The 1996 version was set in the 90's with mid/upper class girls with intact families who didn't know abuse, poverty, and oppression against females as was so showed in the book.
The 1996 version was more about girls who had little connection to each other suddenly deciding to get together and party more so than girls with history together and genuine affection for each other forming a club that became their obsession and their life, a club with a true purpose to help and protect causes, avenge wronged females, more than just cause mayhem.
The 2012 did show the heart of the book as it should have, and the relationship between the girls and Maddy and Legs was better shown and fleshed out than the first movie.
2012 movie showed the girls in the proper 50's era, that they were all poor, neglected and abused and that they were oppressed for being female.
The majority of the important plotting of the book was in the newer movie, as well as direct quotes from the book and dialog, and all this made this a much better and more faithful film.The casting was also pretty accurate; Maddy, Rita, Lana, Goldie, Marianne, and V.V. were more or less accurately chosen in their portrayals and in the physical looks of the girls, and the acting was adequate.
Violet in my opinion was ill chosen and portrayed.
Violet in the book was a stupid, very helpless and desperate girl who was dramatic and constantly getting herself into trouble.
Violet in the movie is pretty and well put together, controlled and quiet, and she certainly didn't have the emotional outbursts and dramatics of the Violet in the book.
But most damaging of all to the movie, in my opinion, is the casting and portrayal of Legs.To me, teen Angelina Jolie is the one thing about the 1996 film that completely trumped the 2012 version.
In that movie, she was androgynous and clearly impulsive, passionate and intimidating, capable of softness and emotional showings all at once, as Legs should be.
Angelina's acting and portrayal were not "perfect" to the book but her physical description was good and her persona was as well.
I could understand, watching Angelina, why the girls would find her charismatic and intriguing and want to follow her and idolize her.This was not the case with the girl who played Legs in the 2012 version, Raven Adamson.
For one thing, the look was all wrong.
Though I appreciated that she was not wearing makeup, as she very well shouldn't have been, she was a small, delicate-looking, very pretty and feminine looking girl with no remarkable features.
Legs was in the book described basically as a wild-haired, bonier teenage Angelina Jolie, as beautiful and bold-featured but androgynous, always dressing in men's clothing and so uncomfortable with her femininity that she actually bound her breasts.
2012 Legs was a pretty little girl who looked no remarkably different than the other Foxfire girls.
I couldn't see how anyone could find her to be physically imposing.
More than this, her portrayal was just wrong.
She was high- voiced and matter of fact most of the time, showing little exuberance of Legs or charismatic posture or gestures or even facial expressions.
She wasn't very emotional even when she was supposedly emotional, and she didn't come across to me as someone so remarkable that others would clearly see her as their leader.
It was as though they put Legs's words in her mouth and told her to do the things Legs did, but she wasn't becoming Legs at all.Some important aspects to Legs were left out as well.
There was no mention of her love of heights, just a couple of times where she sat on a roof with Maddy, and she didn't win a contest for pole climbing or get shown to be respected and intimidating of the boys their age.
Legs's father was not shown to be physically abusive, and there was no scene where she accused him of murdering her mother.
Her mother is in fact never mentioned.
Legs's baby sister was never born, and Legs's love and concern for her sister was a large part of what drove her to want to kidnap Kellogg in the first place- to be able to get enough money to provide for her and the rest of Foxfire.
We never saw her inside the prison at all, so we have no idea of what really happened to her in there other than the two sentences she told Maddy about it later which did not in any way capture the horror of her experiences as the book did and how vulnerable and helpless she felt inside there.
The prison major changed Legs's character in the book so that she came out shocked and yet harder afterward, and there was little show of this in the movie except that she talked to Maddy on the roof about her surprise that women could be the enemy too.
Legs seemed to be the same person the whole way through the 2012 movie, and this is over the course of several years.I feel that the lack of understanding of either the actress or the director of who Legs was as a character hurt the movie in comparison to the book.
It's not a bad movie, but if you read and loved the book as I do, Raven Adamson and her portrayal of Legs simply can't live up to the Legs of the book..
Awesome film.
With so much independent garbage smothering red box & Netflix, I approached this movie with expectations being real low.
But almost instantly you get hooked and want to know who these characters are.
The movie is a very long watch, but I forgot about the clock and just enjoyed the thrill ride.
This movie has the fill and look of a big budget movie and you forget instantly that it's a independent film.
I enjoyed the book and the film real gives a great visual to a perfect story.
The acting was great by everyone, the fresh talent they collected for this movie was spot on.
I feel this movie will launch a lot of great talent into the stars.
If you have the time and your even thinking of watching this movie, do it..
A perfect women's tale.
I confess that I have always loved men's stories: hard, brutal but also touching, poignant.
Stories about pure manhood.
And believe it or not, but that doesn't make me hate the same schemes with women only.
Mixing up of men and gals is not always appropriate.
I love features such as John Ford's SEVEN WOMEN, A GUN FOR JENNIFER or Paul Henreid's GIRLS ON THE LOOSE, and so many other movies.
Tales where women have strong and powerful characters, harder than males.
All this shown with a perfect sensitive talent.
This movie makes no exception.
Tha characters in this feature are most brilliant, described in a flawless way.
It is a 143mn film and there is no length.
A delightful movie.
I guess it is based on actual events.
I don't know the actresses, but I repeat, they are absolutely outstanding.
I particularly loved the lead character: Legs.
Laurent Cantet gives here his best performance..
Not that good.
It starts off pretty good!
You've got the girls standing up to the perverts, but really after that it's just women stealing and breaking shit from innocent people (and like 1 bad guy).The characters feel undeveloped and everyone only has one or two character trait, I know that it's not possible to write a story behind all of the girls but they just needed to focus on some of them!
The "main" character legs doesn't come off like a good person in the end she's just manipulative and mean, in the end they show some stuff from the past and you're supposed to feel sorry about Maggie(or whatever her name was) losing legs but legs just wasn't a like able character.
This was the problem with all of the characters, you just didn't feel for them!
I didn't know anything about the character who killed mr Kellogg's!Some things felt like they were thrown in there!
Like the racism, when they built it up it made me think the the gang would realize that things wasn't like they were supposed to be and that they'd change BUT NO!
The black girl just went home!
Like what the actual fuck?
Now it just feels like it were thrown in there to show that "Oh no racism is bad"!
Another thing whitch they just left was the guy gang!
When they were shown driving past each other I really thought there would be some fight between the two gangs!
Well nothing happened and they just left it there.(I also don't get the old man because he didn't really do much)
Well overall I didn't think it was good but watch it yourself and form your own opinion I'm no professional and it might be right up your alley!Hasse Hansson 43 Denmark.
Foxfire 1996 - Foxfire 2012.
Now - this is a totally different film from the 1996 version - that was an Angelina Joly display - and I loved it.
The 2012 film is so much darker and has so much more integrity than film nr.
1 - yet the sexual sphere was less in this film.
The boys got away totally - I mean the high-school thugs - but it concentrated on the promiscuous dirty old men.
But than again that would not have worked without the gangs physical involvement.
I do'nt get that - "dirty old men" are formed in early years- why not address it - like nr.
I have not red the book, only seen both movies but I am bewildered.
I liked nr 1 because of Angelina Joly, but I liked nr 2 better because of it's message - STAY OUT OF CRIME !!!!.
Fox Fire Burns and Burns and Burns!.
*This film is the girls answer to Stand By Me* I saw the 1996 version because, I LOVE ANGELINA JOLIE!
I read the book because I liked the movie!
(I do things back wards, if I like the movie I read the book,while most other people do the opposite.) I liked the book because it gave better backstory to certain characters and was more dramatic!
I liked the 1996 film because Angelina Jolie was in it was set in a contemporary setting and was more upbeat!
The pros of the 2014 film, It is a lot closer to the book, except two or three scenes that were in the weren't in the film, (which may be a good thing) The cons of the 2014 film, Goldie is a lot less likable in the 2014 film vs the 1996 film, the tattoo scene in the 2014 film is non-nude.The 2014 film is a bit more depressing and drawn out than the 1996 film.If you want a modern upbeat quick feature w/ nudity!
watch the 1996 film.if you want a story to play on you're emotions I recommend the 2014 film.the 1996 version is re-watchable and you walk away from it empowered and uplifted the 2014 isn't as re-watchable and leaves you feeling emotionally drained and a bit depressed!
I also have the soundtrack to the 1996 film!
this is no-way relation to the 1987 film of the same name!