Boys (1996)

For a movie that basically puts a 90s spin on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with Winona Ryder as a runaway babe given shelter by horny teens in a prep school dorm, Boys should be more fun.

The tale begins with a cop (John C Reilly) calling on Patty Vare (Ryder) at her Maryland home to ask about a car stolen the night before and about the disappearance of Bud Valentine (Skeet Ulrich), a hot pitcher for Pittsburgh.

A nervous Patty claims ignorance and hops on her horse for an afternoon ride. When the horse rears and she’s knocked unconscious. Patty is found by John Baker (Lukas Haas), a senior at the tie-and-jacket Sherwood School for Boys.

Baker is so besotted by the sleeping princess that the younger students tease him about the “boner” in his pants. But soon the dwarfs, er, boys are all doing little favours for Patty.

She doesn’t want to go home or to a hospital and Baker does it her way, even when she entices him to join her at a local fair for a few beers and a roll in the grass – offences that could get him expelled.

Ryder and Haas (the big-eyed Amish boy from Witness (1985) now past puberty) make adorable flirts, but the fuss the film tries to stir about the kid and the older woman doesn’t fly since Ryder, at 24, still looks like jailbait no matter how much she smears Patty with lipstick and badass attitude.

The happy ending is a miscalculation. It’s fine for Snow White to go out with a smile and a song; Patty Vare needed to lie down with darkness.

Patty Vare
Winona Ryder
John Baker Jr
Lukas Haas
Officer Kellogg Curry
John C. Reilly
Fenton Ray
James Le Gros
Bud Valentine
Skeet Ulrich
John Murphy
Spencer Vrooman
John Cooke
Charlie Hofheimer
Officer Bill Martone
Bill Sage
John Phillips
Wiley Wiggins
Frances
Vivienne Shub
John Van Slieder
Russell Young
Jon Heinz
Christopher Pettiet
Jilly
Catherine Keener

Director
Stacy Cochran

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