BABY IT'S YOU

Return of the Secaucus Seven
Lianna
Baby, It's You
The Brother from Another Planet
Matewan
Eight Men Out
City of Hope
Passion Fish
The Secret of Roan Inish
Lone Star
Men with Guns (Hombres Armados)
Limbo
Sunshine State
Casa de los Babys
Silver City
Honeydripper

Appearing as the industry 'Brat Pack' cycle brought fresh impetus to the teen movie, Baby It's You (1983) more emphatically tapped into historical and cultural preoccupations that Sayles was making his own. Set in the '60s, that halcyon era of political action and cultural definition evoked in Sayles' first film (Return of the Secaucus Seven), this story of an ambitious Jewish high school student's affair with a dapper Italian-American petty criminal renders assimilationist concerns through the tender prism of a love story. Many of Sayles' films spring from what happens when people meet, when difference encounters difference. As Terrence Rafferty wrote in Sight and Sound, Baby It's You "is structured as an extended single moment of convergence — of two radically different styles, different classes, different sets of expectations about the world. It has the intimacy and closure of a turn on the dance floor with an attractive, unlikely stranger." America is often described as a melting pot, and Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano's very specific ethnic beauty bring vital charisma to roles that resonate with the American streets, bars and college cliques beyond the frame. Compare the singular presence of Spano's 'Sheik' with the Walmart cashier looks of Jill's WASP admirer Steve (Matthew Modine, then being groomed for mainstream stardom). The tension between the American Dream and the unlikely particulars of actual American lives is a recurring theme. Whilst Sheik, like many Italian boys, aspires to be Sinatra but finds himself miming for the blue rinse set, Jill is on the way to finding herself as herself, a mission thrust upon Sayles women from Lianna to Marly in Sunshine State. Passing on nostalgia, Sayles' soundtrack is a dynamic mix of '60s jukebox poetry and recent Bruce Springsteen, reminding us that the setting of Trenton and Asbury Park, New Jersey was Springsteen's own stamping ground, and that Sayles' oeuvre includes videos for Springsteen and the E Street Band.

-- Richard Armstrong, Senses of Cinema