It is made clear just prior to their first sex scene that Michael Caine is 28 years older than Michelle Johnson.
Michelle Johnson then tells Joseph Bologna that she had sex with a 43-year-old man.
THAT WOULD MAKE HER CHARACTER.....15????????????????
I am free. But life is so cheap.
I think I recall him correcting her on his age. It doesn't really matter, it was his best friend's daughter and therefore off limits. But to be fair, Michelle Johnson looks older than her real-life seveteen years of age. Michael Caine's character really didn't have a chance.
He said - "I'm 20 years older than you."
She said "28 years older"
He corrects her - "25"
However, I agree - its an inappropriate relationship with any age. But then that's the whole point of this movie.
In the film named 'Manhattan', Woody Allen is 43 and his girl friend is teen age who is in high school. For that matter, the basic theme of the film named 'American Beauty' too was the same. And I think I liked all these films!
shareHow is a "best friend's daughter" off limits? There is no intimate/personal relationship that you would be interfering with. What a load of crap.
What if you marry a woman, and her father (your father-in-law) becomes your best friend over time. Do you now get a divorce? And he could only be 15-20 years older than you depending on circumstances.
Or you have a friend who children very early in life, and now that person is in their thirties, and you're in your 50's. There's some imaginary constraint?
BS. Just drop all the artificial constraints, and live your life with those who love and who love you.
Grow up, people (puritans).
The two friends were teenagers.
T-E-E-N-A-G-E-R-S !!!
No matter how you try to justify it, the familial boundaries were transgressed. I'm amazed this had been made into a comedy.No matter how you look at it, the relationship was INAPPROPRIATE!
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I so hope you are the father of a daughter who *beep* your best male friend someday. :)
shareIt was a bizarre relationship and quite eye brow raising. As far as those who consider people puritanical for questioning it, I agree with chelle. Easy to be cavalier about it until your fifty year old buddy messes with your 18 year old daughter. I don't know anyone who would suddenly be okay with that, no matter how progressive they say they are.
shareCouldn't agree more with the last couple of posts. The relationship between Caine and Johnson is the kind of thing some people are totally cool with -- until it happens to their daughter.
It's not a question of puritanism. It's a matter of not being a twit.
I have a soft spot for this movie. I find it a refreshing take on a potentially uncomfortable topic, which is the power teenage girls feel and wield as they develop physically. I remember that. It's a heady realization - just a couple of years (or even months) ago you were a kid, now you have something men want. Normal grown men, not pedophiles. Johnson's character has the fully developed body of a woman and the intense feelings of a girl in the grip of a childhood crush. For the plot I think her age, 15, is perfect. Of course she's taboo, but she's not a little girl; a sexually normal man will at least like to look. And unlike some other posters, who see her pursuit of Matthew as a perv's fantasy, I find it entirely plausible. She's in love - and prepared to deploy all her charms to snag her hero. She's got the goods, and she knows it.
The topless beach scene, which makes some people squeamish, strikes me as admirably bold. The nudity is so matter-of-fact. In the U.S., maybe they'd be in string bikinis, but just going ahead and showing people's bodies to me makes the tone actually less leering and creepy. It's out in the open: These girls are also *women*.
Girls mature earlier than boys, and at 15 this is often readily apparent. They've made the transition to fully formed sexual maturity, while boys their age are boys. The tension is in the transition, and Michelle's long American-style adolescence becomes almost a character of its own. She is still Daddy's little girl - to Daddy, and, at the beginning, to Caine's character as well. Meanwhile Demi Moore's sexuality is made explicit: She's asked for and received permission to take the Pill.
With a better-written role and (probably) a better actress, this could have been a much more interesting movie - if, for example, Johnson's character had some of the nuance Moore exhibits. But "Blame it on Rio" works partly because Michelle Johnson's character (as opposed to her body!) is so underdeveloped. Her intense, hero-worshiping crush is consuming enough to take Caine's character along for the ride, which keeps the film ticking along as fast-paced farce.
His falling for her gives him a bit of moral cover, which he severely needs as the story unfolds. But this development is not terribly convincing, and that's partly the point. Nothing gets too heavy and the film plays out as a bit of audacious eye candy. To succeed, this film can't take itself too seriously. And I do find it a success, on its own terms. I found it plausible enough in the post-Pill, pre-AIDS early '80s - especially in such a sensuous, permissive milieu. Blame it on Rio, indeed.
When I was a sophomore in high school, there was a gorgeous, long-haired blonde girl in my class with that kind of body and she was dating a guy 22. Not the same age gap but still a bit of a difference for that age. This was 40 years ago and no one gave it a second thought.
shareYou should post spoiler alert
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