Desperate for Love (1989)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I stumbled onto this while channel surfing and after sampling a few minutes I didn't want to turn it off. The all-too-familiar love triangle theme is played out with two best friends in high school, torn apart by sultry sexpot and fellow classmate Lily, who'll do anything (and any one) to get her out of this hick town. She bounces back and forth between confident jock Alex and his shy pal Cliff, who's always there to pick up the pieces when Alex lets her down. In spite of the strain Lily puts on their friendship the 2 boys manage to hang through it all - until Alex disappears after a hunting trip with Cliff. When Alex's body is found the police pick up Cliff immediately, as the love triangle was no secret to anyone. Before Cliff's arrest Lily had tried desperately to get him to confess, but to no avail. While almost everything points to Cliff as the culprit, Lily's father should also have been under suspicion, for he had threatened Alex to keep him away from Lily and he's also no slouch with a rifle.As the shooting was never shown, everyone's in the dark when the murder trial begins, including the audience. Lily's betrayal of gullible Cliff on the witness stand seams to be sealing his fate when he throws his hat in the ring for her yet again and decides to plead guilty to manslaughter to save Lily from further grueling cross-examination on the witness stand. His gallantry earns him 8 years in prison and left me wondering what about the ballistics evidence? The bullet(s) in Alex' body should have pointed to the culprit as the one who's rifle matched the bullets, but such trifles are never mentioned. Thus we never find out for sure who killed Alex, but at least the producers were kind enough to show the terms of Cliff's sentence in the screen credits at the end. And now that the movie's over, who killed Alex? I'm still wondering.The actors are quite competent and here's a chance to see a very young Christian Slater before he became famous. Tammy Lauren is fetching and believable as the poor "white trash" girl who knows what she's got and how to use it to bring the hormones of teen-aged boys to a boil. As Cliff's attorney for the defense puts it, she thinks she's been spending all her time looking for "L-O-V-E," when the operative word should be "S-E-X." The movies's final scene shows Lily, looking depressed and leaning against the mill where she lured the boys for those "love" trysts. Now she must face her own fate as a pariah, still stuck in this future-less town, knowing she's ruined lives and families. Clearly she's serving out her own sentence, but one feels it isn't long or harsh enough.

Desperate for love is the emotional thriller that will force the viewer to question every loyalty they have ever had in life. While the cover for this movie claims that Cliff Petrie was "desperate for love" I personally believe that the true desperation was held within Lily Becker. Cliff Petrie gives us one simple example of pure, unadulterated love. Meanwhile Lilly Becker clearly displays fear, depression, and anxiety along with a cunning and seductive deception.

I don't suppose that I would be considered a "Hick". I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, I was brought up in Chicago. Even still, calling this film a CRAZY HICK MOVIE was offensive.Now. I'm 22 now, so I was 10 when this movie was made. I most likely saw it for the first in the early 1990's, and I still love it. I watch it every chance I get.This movie had everything. Suspense, Drama, Comedy.I thought that Brian Bloom played his Rich Boy role quite well. He simply has those Rich Boy looks, he still has those gorgeous eyes that just make you shake your head.Anyway. I am NO fan of Christian Slater's. But he acted good in this movie. The role he played, was annoying though. Kinda made me want to puke.I don't know the Lead Female's name, but her name was Lily in the movie. Lily is an outright FOOL. I hated her. She made me sick, sick, sick. And sicker.

i'm a hardcore christian slater fan and i couldn't even watch this entire movie.. it's awful... maybe i didn't like it because i'm not a small town white trash cow girl.. [at one point Christian Slater actually talks about how he can't do his "raising a bull" school assignment because his family needed money so they had to sell it].. i bought the movie for $5 and i'm willing to give it to the first person who wants it.. i haven't even watched the whole thing.. i couldn't stand it.