Better Off Dead... (1985) on Netflix
Lane Myer's girlfriend Beth Truss leaves him for Roy Stalin, the captain of the ski team. Lane wants her back, and a French exchange student named Monique Junot lives next door.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.1/1054,282 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lane Myer is a high school student in Greendale whose life revolves around skiing and his girlfriend Beth Truss. Before Christmas, Beth leaves him for Roy Stalin, the captain of the ski team, and Roy rejects Lane at tryouts. Lane sinks into despair and settles on ending his life, though his efforts keep going wrong. At home, his mother Jenny serves meals that slide off the plates, his younger brother Badger builds lasers, and his father Al chases off Johnny Gasparini, a paperboy demanding the two dollars he says the family owes him. Lane's best friend, Charles De Mar, gets high on whatever the small town offers. Next door, the French exchange student Monique Junot has moved in with the Smiths, and Mrs. Smith keeps pushing her toward her son Ricky, so Monique pretends she speaks no English.
Cast
- Aaron Dozieras Roy Stalin
- Laura Waterburyas Mrs. Smith
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Better Off Dead... (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to Holland, Cusack disliked the film so much that he walked out of a screening and later confronted him, saying it "was the worst thing I have ever seen" and that he would never trust him as a director again.
- The relentless paperboy's voice was not the actor on screen: Yano Anaya looped all of Demian Slade's dialogue, having earlier played bully Grover Dill in A Christmas Story.
- Critics Siskel and Ebert gave the film two thumbs down on their TV show, yet it was one of the few movies they discussed on air while skipping it entirely in their own newspaper columns.
- Several well-known songs heard in the film, including tracks by Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra and Hall & Oates, never made it onto the official soundtrack album.
