The Perils of a Smart Kid in High School: Bullying, Unrequited Love and Tough Lessons in LUCAS

By Kevin Renick

“They’re all gone, you know…the locusts. I was just outside. They aren’t making any noise anymore.” Maggi (Kerri Green) to Lucas (Corey Haim) on the disappearance of the 17-year cicadas in LUCAS.
“Not for 17 years.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I just wonder where we’ll be when they come back. You’ll be 33. I’ll be 31 ½. I wonder if we’ll still know each other?
“I don’t know.”
“I hope so…”

Spring was always an evocative time for me during my school days. I could walk to school almost every day and enjoy the new warmth. The maple trees would be shedding their maple squirts which some of us kids used to stick between our teeth to make funny insect-like sounds, and girls were easy to notice again since the season of bundling up in warm layers had passed. I remember getting very restless, though, as I had dreams of going on nature jaunts, family trips and whatever other non-school activities I might anticipate. I couldn’t wait for the summer to come.

Lucas, a simple yet poignant look at high school life from the point of view of a kid with an accelerated educational trajectory (Corey Haim in one of his first movies) actually takes place in late summer and early fall, a time when the football players are gearing up for the opening game, cheerleader tryouts are taking place, and kids are noticing each other, sometimes in fresh ways and sometimes in unwelcome ways like bullying. But the vibe of this movie reminds me more of spring than fall, perhaps because Lucas is really into science and nature, like I was at his age. He can talk about tadpoles, terrariums, the short lifespan of locusts and plenty of other scientific topics with knowledge and insight. At school, the biggest struggle for Lucas is dealing with bullies. We quickly find out he’s had problems in the past and things are only going to get worse. One bully saddled him with the derogatory nickname “Leukoplakia.” The movie, deftly directed by David Seltzer, reveals that the name was derived from a disease that can lead to cancer of the mouth. Lucas likes to talk a lot and give explanations for things that are sometimes long-winded and annoying. Hence, unstoppable bullies like Bruno (Tom Hodges) find this small, loquacious kid an easy target. 

Bruno was exactly like some of the jocks I encountered in junior high and my freshman year in high school. I was given unpleasant nicknames, too, including “Rental” and “Wrench”. Neither of these was witty or based on a concept with a relevant association, but since when was that a requirement for bullies? Although I wasn’t in an “accelerated” program like Lucas, I WAS one of the smart guys in class who wasn’t very athletic. And yes, I mouthed off defensively at times, as Lucas does (I shared his ability to use language in creative ways), and I was often a loner, which instantly marked me as a “weirdo.” So I definitely related to what Lucas experiences in this movie. 

Despite the bullying, Lucas is starting to notice girls. Especially Maggie (Kerri Green), a willowy redhead who plays tennis, appreciates good conversation and has the warmest of hearts for her age. I knew some girls like her in high school, but wasn’t able to be quite as chatty with them as Lucas is here. The two strike up an easy friendship…taking walks in nature, going for rides (Maggie has her driver’s license), and in one beautiful scene, Lucas takes Maggie through a giant underground sewer system that leads to an opening where an orchestra performs concerts in the park. Lucas even asks a respectful concertgoer, who sees him push the circular grate aside, if he can borrow a program. Then he can tell Maggie what a “heavy night” of music is going to take place. The two kids sit back to back as a beautiful orchestral passage wafts down to their location in the sewer. 

“Lucas, I think I like classical music!” says Maggie. Lucas knows he’s having one of those rare magical moments. The camera captures his quiet, wistful expression. “I wish summer didn’t have to end,” he tells his new crush.

For me, Kerri Green turns in one of the most memorable performances EVER by a teen actress. Many movie fans would gravitate towards director John Hughes and his acting faves like Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy when talking of great teen performances. I appreciated The Breakfast Club for its focus on five different types of familiar struggling high schoolers (from nerd to “princess” to jock) forced to interact with one another during a day of detention, and I admired Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused because it captured so many things about high school circumstances that I could relate to, especially the way the director used music and portrayed the overly smug attitude of so many high school boys. But I honestly can’t think of a more authentic, soulful performance by a teenage actress than Kerri Green’s in Lucas. I was so moved by her work that I once wrote her a fan letter. She replied and sent me an autographed photo. Although I was well out of high school by then, I think I was almost as smitten as Lucas was in the film.

Maggie realizes that Lucas has some deeper feelings for her. He calls her “beautiful” at one point, a compliment she mostly ignores. And in a predictable but sensitively handled development, Maggie falls for “Cappie,” a handsome football player portrayed by Charlie Sheen with more depth than we see in many of his later roles. Cappie counts himself as a friend of Lucas, and in the kind of twist we DON’T often find in mainstream teen flicks, he defends Lucas against some of Bruno’s juvenile attacks. He and Maggie discuss what a “great kid” Lucas is and how smart he is. Naturally, Cappie also finds Maggie irresistible, and there’s a rather delightful scene with the two of them in a laundry room that shows how young romance can develop pretty quickly. 

An even better scene occurs in a chorus room with all the major characters, including Cappie’s current (but soon to be EX) girlfriend Alise (Courtney Thorne-Smith) and Rina (Winona Ryder in her film debut), a sweet and smart girl who likes Lucas for who he is and doesn’t hide her interest in him. In this particular scene, which is one of my favorites from ANY teenage movie, we hear the distinctive sound of youthful voices singing wordless harmonies, a sound that never fails to touch my heart, and one that I loved from my own adolescence. As the sound fills the room, the camera pans from the face of each main character as they look around for the object of their affection: Rina to Lucas to Maggie to Cappie to Alise. Director David Seltzer perfectly captures the preoccupying nature of young love and yearning at this age and juxtaposes it with the haunting music these kids are capable of making.

Lucas is beyond heartbroken when he discovers that Maggie and Cappie have started dating, although they go to great lengths to be nice to him. “Luke, she wasn’t your girlfriend,” Cappie tries to explain, but Lucas can’t hear it. And I know how he felt! Way too many times I liked a girl in high school only to find out she was already seeing another boy. And the soulful girlfriend I was lucky enough to date for a while, ended up seeing someone else due to hesitations on my part. Like Lucas, I hated the feeling I wasn’t good enough somehow. Pain is always the result of these things, plain and simple. And Lucas expresses that in the movie with clarity, honesty, and no ambivalence.

There’s another absolutely wonderful scene in which the main group of kids are driving home from a movie together and encounter a batch of 17-year cicadas flying every which way. Alise freaks out when one of them gets in her hair. The contrast between Alise’s melodramatic reaction and the calm, confident way Maggie talks about the locusts, stating “I don’t mind them. Lucas told me all about them,” was quite powerful for me. My friends growing up were also into nature like this, and able to have imaginative, enlightened conversations about the natural world. The scene ends with one of the kids smooshing a locust, and the camera shows us the resulting sad looks on the faces of Maggie and Lucas. The shot always gives me a chill. It’s a meticulously directed scene that reminds me of more things in my life than I can recount, including my OWN childhood love of cicadas and the music they make.

The primary tension in the climactic section of the film results from Lucas’ attempt to try out for the football team, an insane decision he makes because of the “survival of the fittest,” which he explains to Maggie is how our species endures, because the females are “naturally attracted to mates who are the strongest.” Lucas’ counselor at the school is horrified and tries to stop him. The smug, patronizing coach—even if he’s something of a caricature—gets into a match of insults with the athletically limited Lucas and the youngster wins easily. Lucas DOES end up in the big game, and there’s a moment when we think every cliché in youthful sports movies is about to occur. The outmatched, picked-upon nerd is about to triumph at last, right? But this movie has other things in mind. Lucas does indeed have an understated triumph (after nearly getting killed, let’s add). But the film is more interested in dissecting what it’s like to have an unquenchable crush, how friendship is genuinely the most important thing for everyone (a theme driven home more powerfully than in many other teen films), and how intelligence and mutual respect are traits to be celebrated. I realized that I’ve always felt this way in my life. I didn’t have Lucas’ academic stature or his brazen determination to try proving himself in a sport like football to impress an object of affection. But I did get to enjoy SOME athletic success on the street hockey and badminton teams during my junior year. I even helped defeat the hockey team led by a guy who had bullied me in the past, enough to rate several mentions in my high school diary. Yes, Lucas and I had enough in common for me to respond with deep emotions whenever I see this movie.  It really takes me back. And the ending here is truly a welcome surprise…

When you know your own childhood and teen years were filled with unique, sophisticated, complex elements and rich memories, it can be supremely annoying to watch the teen fare that emerges from Hollywood and find it often filled with clichés, shallow characters and mindless stuff that just was NOT part of your experience. Richard Linklater, Amy Heckerling and a few other smart directors aside, David Seltzer achieved something special in Lucas. He showed us believable scenes, a group of kids that are bright and well-intentioned, and most of all the HOPE that accompanies seasons of youth. And the delightful Kerri Green captured the kind of girls I actually knew, who were open to real conversations and doing things together without being stupid teen stereotypes. 

I have to like any movie where the importance of friendship is the main takeaway. If I were able to magically become a character in Lucas, I would tell the kid to relish the wonderful times with Maggie, nurture the friendship with her, and let her live her own life as she chooses. He’ll be better off in the long run. Fortunately, Lucas comes to a similar conclusion by himself despite the angst he’s made to endure.  And I think it’s a revelation that can still resonate in the increasingly challenging circumstances teens face today.