That Night MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +3 Content: -1 1/2

Eleven-year-old Alice "Ally" Bloom (Eliza Dushku) lives with her parents on Long Island in the summer of 1961. Seventeen-year-old Cheryl O'Connor (Juliette Lewis) and her parents move in across the street. Ally becomes fascinated with Cheryl, a free-spirited teenager who listens to grown-up music and dances seductively in front of her bedroom window. Ally's father is very cold to her, and she yearns for the same kind of relationship she sees between Cheryl and her father. When Cheryl's father dies suddenly, she finds solace in Rick (C. Thomas Howell), a troubled older teenager. Despite her mother's protest, Cheryl spends her evenings at the beach partying with Rick and his friends. Ally eventually becomes Cheryl's confidant, and even sneaks away to the beach with her. The summer fun turns to crisis when Cheryl gets pregnant and is sent to a Catholic home for unwed mothers. Ally and Rick team up to get Rick and Cheryl back together again. THAT NIGHT is a well-crafted and well-acted coming of age story. It's an interesting and original portrayal of growing up in the early Sixties.

THAT NIGHT lives up to its PG-13 rating in the areas of language and sexual situations. The film opens with two ten-year-old boys discussing their sexual development. Sexual intercourse occurs once, with no nudity. Ally's friends peruse a sex handbook and play spin the bottle at a birthday party with the parents upstairs and unaware. Cheryl's evening dances in her lingerie in front of the window are moderately seductive. Rick and his friends storm Cheryl's house, demanding to see her. The neighborhood dads defend Cheryl's mother, and a fight breaks out on the front lawn. Adolescent smoking and drinking are shown as natural rites of passage into adulthood. To its credit, THAT NIGHT realistically illustrates the negative consequences of teen sex. Young Ally sees how lives can be devastated when teenagers become sexually involved. Except for the gratuitous obscenities and profanities, this film could be recommended for parents and teenagers.

Preview Reviewer: Pete Zimowski
Distributor: Warner Bros., 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522