"Smooth Talk" is a strange, languid coming-of-age movie that makes a surprising shift into thriller territory toward the end.It's about a young girl, played by Laura Dern, who has a strained relationship with her mother. She lies to her about where she is going so that she can go hang out with her friends. She flirts with boys, and some of these encounters are harmless and fun. Others are threatening.At a party she meets a strange man in passing who tells her he is watching. We don't know how she feels about this, but if the encounter is expected to generate suspense, it doesn't. You might not even notice.Later, the guy (played by Treat Williams) shows up, acting like a refugee from a generic thriller. The scene isn't scary, but the characters talk for so long that you don't know if it's supposed to be. Wouldn't she be scared to the point of ending the conversation?The thriller aspect is handled so negligibly that you are left only with the teen girl angst stuff, which is also just not that interesting or convincing.

Joyce Chopra directed this adaptation of the Joyce Carol Oates short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" that stars Laura Dern as teenager Connie Wyatt, who is spending the summer in a cottage somewhere in California, who has grown bored and restless, and spends much of her time at the mall with her friends chasing boys. One day, things take a strange turn when, after Connie is left alone for a day because she doesn't want to go on a family outing, is confronted by a "smooth talking" older man named Arnold Friend(played by Treat Williams) who drives up to her home, and tries to convince Connie to take a ride with him... Good performances(especially by Dern) but film never really goes anywhere, and ends inconclusively.

The character of Arnold Friend was actually based loosely on Charles Howard Schmid, Jr., or "Smitty" aka "The Pied Piper of Tucson" who killed teenage girls in the 1960's. "The Pied Piper mimicked teenagers in talk, dress, and behavior, but he was not a teenager-he was a man in his early thirties. Rather short, he stuffed rags in his leather boots to give himself height." (from an article by Joyce Carole Oates) The rags made him unsteady on his feet.

"Smooth Talk" spends the first half of its run time developing the Dern character, showing her to be a typically (more or less) rebellious, angst-filled, brittle teen who is just discovering boys and dating when an unexpected encounter with a smooth talker (Williams) forces her to take a quantum leap toward maturity. A simple little serious-minded indie with a thin story and not so thin message, "SM" is a slow starter with a solid performance by Dern which will likely be most appreciated by females. B-