The first date I went on with my eventual wife was an advance screening of 1991’s Mystery Date. Although the date was very important to me, the screening was just another of a long line of them, courtesy of the passes I received as my job of being a critic for a community newspaper. It seems strange now to have lucked into such a job and how quickly I became blasé about it.
It is also amazing how many new movies were in theatres each weekend back then. It would be far fewer films than arrive on streaming each week today, but it is far greater than what hits the multiplexes on any given weekend now. Hell, maybe any given month nowadays. And an innocuous film like this didn’t stand a chance.
Ethan Hawke is obsessed with Teri Polo, who lives in the house behind the one where he lives with his parents in an upscale suburb. If this were remade today, his behavior would rightly be portrayed as creepy and stalkerish, as he watches her through a telescope in his bedroom window and goes through the remains of her trash.
The family’s favorite son, and Hawke’s older brother, has returned from law school just as their parents have left for a dog show in which they have entered their beloved schnauzer. It is obvious from the first second we see the brother (Brian McNamara) that he is a conniving shitweasel. As a general rule, one should distrust men who button their shirts all the way to the top, unless they’re wearing a tie. The is doubly true when the man says things like “Never let the law stand in the way of a good time.”
McNamara uses receipts found in Polo’s trash which Hawke stole, then calls her to arrange a date for that night where Hawke will pretend to be him. He even has the younger brother’s hair styled like his and dressed identically. Why, he even insists on Hawke carrying his wallet and using it for all the expenses he’ll incur that night. Among the fashion advice he has is to wear glasses, even though they’ll fly off when women hit you. Hawke wonders aloud why that would possibly happen to him, but he’ll have that happen repeatedly over the course of the night, as he encounters multiple women who have a low opinion of the man he’s impersonating.
Hawke may be overwhelmed, but he isn’t dim. He wonders how McNamara arrived in his cherry 1959 DeSoto convertible if he claims he just flew in. McNamara will have a surprise later when he discovers Hawke is driving that car when the limo which was ordered becomes unavailable. There is an unfortunate surprise in the trunk of the DeSoto. Given McNamara’s deceitful nature, it seems that he would be OK with kid brother driving around the car with that extra baggage.
By the end of the night, Hawke will have evaded arrest multiple times, dodged bullets, narrowly avoided a pummeling from several burly men, nearly fallen off a road overpass several stories high and been accused of being both a cop killer and a man brave enough to steal from the head of the Tong Mafia. Oh, and he’s also being pursued by crazed flower delivery man Fisher Stevens.
While I was able to suspend my disbelief for much of the plot, I was never fully onboard with everybody mistaking Hawke for McNamara, no matter how similar the clothes and hair. Fisher had a long conversation only inches away from McNamara, yet doesn’t realize Hawke isn’t him. Then there’s the multiple women who have a bone to pick with the older brother, all likely involving his bone, and they take the matter up with Hawke by mistake. Most difficult to believe is gang leader B.D. Wong, who has supposedly been doing business with the older brother while never actually having seen the man. To accept what drives the central premise is to believe everybody either has eyesight so bad it would rival Mr. Magoo, or they only know of McNamara from a few steps removed.
I liked this movie even the first time I saw it, though I was a bit distracted at the time. It keeps getting funnier with each consequent viewing. Much of that is courtesy of dialogue such as this exchange between Wong and Polo as regarding McNamara: “Did you know he killed my cousin?” “This is our first date. We haven’t really opened up to each other yet.” I like a recurring bit with detectives, one of whom is Don S. Davis of Twin Peaks fame, destroying the house in which Hawke lives, while searching for a MacGuffin which drives the plot.
Hawke’s awkward interactions with older adults at a graduation ceremony for the family dog suggest the film is positioning itself as a later day The Graduate, which is wishful thinking. If anything, it is close to being a lighter version of Scorsese’s After Hours, as everything that happens here is largely over the course of one long night, with Hawke in well over his head as he finds himself in such situations as fleeing that deranged florist. In that regard, Stevens could be an analogue for Catherine O’Hara from Scorsese’s film. And there are all manner of odd little details like Polo being surprised to see a gas station attendant practicing Tai Chi, and she complements him on his form. And, even for a movie from 1991, there is something very odd about Hawke and Polo finding themselves at a GWAR concert.
Speaking of which, the needle drops in this are largely fantastic. It would make for a good mixtape for what radio sounded like in that year, as alterative music crept into the mainstream. I was surprised there are three songs by INXS, and that isn’t a complaint. There’s also Seal’s “Crazy”, which was omnipresent that year. A track from Sonic Youth makes a surprise appearance underscoring an action sequence. Not on the soundtrack, but represented by posters and t-shirts are Elvis Costello and Los Lobos.
Of the movies about which I have written, Mystery Date is the most difficult to essay with anything approaching objectivity. Given it was my first date with the woman with whom I want to spend the rest of my life, one could say it is the most important movie screening I have ever attended. A neat perk was promotional binoculars that were under the seats at that preview, and these become a memento I will always cherish. How oddly prescient one of the last lines McNamara has in the film is: “One day, years from now, when you’re sitting on your fat, wrinkly asses, you’re going to remember this night.” How right he was.
Dir: Jonathan Wacks
Starring Ethan Hawke, Teri Polo, Brian McNamara, Fisher Stevens
Watched on Olive Films blu-ray