The silly comedy Jonathan Demme considers one of the greats
Filmmakers are by no means expected to spend their free time watching the type of movies they make themselves, but that doesn’t make it any less bizarre that a cult classic high school comedy would be singled out by Jonathan Demme as one of his favourites.
Of course, the director was no stranger to a comedic caper or two after helming Something Wild, Married to the Mob, and Ricki and the Flash to name but three, although it was intense psychological thrills that marked his greatest achievement behind the camera.
Becoming the third – and so far final – feature to win the ‘Big Five’ at the Academy Awards after scooping ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Actress’, and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, The Silence of the Lambs is Demme’s best-known feature-based entirely on the huge impact it made on the collective consciousness, driven in part by its spine-tingling execution and Anthony Hopkins’ iconic performance as Hannibal Lecter.
There were many more strings to his creative bow, though, as showcased by the fact his very first feature after The Silence of the Lambs was the powerful drama Philadelphia, which saw Demme directing Tom Hanks to the first of his two back-to-back Oscar wins for ‘Best Actor’. Even the latter years of his career yielded a worthy remake, The Manchurian Candidate, and a hard-hitting character study, Rachel Getting Married, but nothing that ticked anywhere near as many comedic boxes as his guilty pleasure.
As part of his time spent curating the Rarely Seen Cinema screenings at the Jacob Burns Film Center, Demme compiled a list of films that he believed everyone should see. An intriguing mix of underrated gems, hidden classics, and titles that hardly painted themselves as appointment viewing, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion stood out as perhaps the most curious candidate of all.
David Mirkin’s 1997 high school romp wasn’t overwhelmingly popular at the time of its initial release, but in the years to come, it would develop a wide-ranging and vocal fanbase who became obsessed with watching Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow’s title characters concoct an intricate and elaborate lie about the success they’d achieved in life ahead of their ten-year reunion with former classmates.
A made-for-television sequel was aired in 2005, and a stage production inspired by the movie was launched in 2017, with the lasting influence and multi-generational legacy of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion outlined by the confirmation from Sorvino in February 2024 that a sequel was closer than ever to happening.
“Lisa and I are wrapping up our deals as executive producers on it with the studio,” she said. “We’re full force ahead”. Sadly, Demme passed away in April 2017 at the age of 73, but who knows, maybe his Little Seen Cinema series turned a few more viewers onto the merits of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion along the way.
