June 7, 2002 | In Cherish, a captivatingly quirky hybrid of character portrait, romantic comedy and beat-the-clock thriller, San Francisco-born writer-director Finn Taylor (Dream With the Fishes) playfully and persuasively argues that, even while you’re immobilized by an electronic ankle-bracelet and menaced by a borderline-psychotic stalker, his home town still can be a great place to find love, adventure and groovy golden-oldies.
After seeing the movie twice, I’d have to say that Taylor proves his premise – but only with a lot of help from an enormously appealing actress in a star-making lead role.
Up-and-comer Robin Tunney is delightful and delectable in a breakthrough performance as Zoe Adler, a not-so-swinging single who’s wrongly accused of vehicular homicide, and forced to await trial while under house arrest in her loft apartment. Poor Zoe: It speaks volumes about the rut in which she’s stuck that her life actually starts to improve once she’s immobilized.
During the fleeting scenes prior to her confinement, we see Zoe toiling as a twentysomething animator in a production office where everyone else appears cooler, trendier and much, much more self-assured. Zoe qualifies as having a social life only because… well, she sleeps around a lot. Mind you, she’s not promiscuous by nature. “I don’t think I’d go out with so many different guys,” she tells her psychiatrist, “if any of them would ever call me back.”
Trouble is, Zoe is so desperately eager and socially maladroit that she has a hard time merely worming her way into after-hours get-togethers with her own co-workers. And the one time she does work up the courage to invite herself to a gathering at a nearby watering hole, she gets drunk enough to make a fool of herself with a hunky office mate (Jason Priestley, who’s a good sport for appearing so silly in Zoe’s romantic fantasies). Then things really go downhill for her when, on her way home, she’s carjacked by an obsessed secret admirer who hits the gas pedal when they’re stopped by a cop. The cop dies, the stalker flees and Zoe is found – alone, unconscious and reeking of booze – by other police officers.
Taylor nimbly maneuvers through a seriocomic set-up that, in different hands, might have served as the prologue for a standard-issue, damsel-in-distress thriller. (Come to think of it, didn’t soft-core queen Shannon Tweed make a direct-to-video movie with roughly the same plot? Not that I’ve ever actually seen a Shannon Tweed movie, you understand, I’m just asking.) The humor gets a shade broader, and the movie as a whole turns pleasingly friskier, as Zoe is forced to spend huge chunks of time alone, with nothing to do but eat, sleep and listen to her favorite soft-rock radio station – tunes by the likes of The Association, whose classic Top 40 hit gives the movie its title, and Hall & Oates are heard on the nifty soundtrack – while she takes account of her life.
Cherish is very funny as Zoe goes to extremes, whether she’s struggling to make contact with her neighbors, anxiously vamping a delivery boy to stave off loneliness, or simply rollerblading around her loft in aimless, time-killing circles. But the movie also indicates that, with no one but herself for company, Zoe realizes how much she doesn’t like about herself. Without making a big deal about it, Cherish is at heart a surprisingly thoughtful story about self-empowerment and re-invention. No kidding.
Almost in spite of herself, Zoe gradually develops an unlikely bond with Daly (Tim Blake Nelson), the police department ankle-bracelet specialist who maintains the monitoring device on her shapely leg. Nelson is a hoot – think of a younger, marginally hipper and more resourceful Deputy Barney Fife – and his character comes in very handy during the final 20 minutes or so, as Zoe gets a limited-time opportunity to stalk her stalker.
There’s also an appealingly sweet awkwardness to the slow blossoming of their romance, and to Daly’s oddball behavior as he goes about the tricky business of courting a woman he’s supposed to keep imprisoned. There’s a scene involving steel wool and a portable radio that I don’t want to spoil by describing in detail. But trust me: It’s the most endearing profession of love you’ll likely see at the movies all summer long.
It’s always difficult to pull off a genre-scrambling crazy-quilt such as Cherish, so it’s not altogether surprising that, when the time comes to wrap things up, Taylor leaves a few strings dangling with an ending that’s less than fully satisfying. Still, so much of the movie is so enjoyable that it’s hard to dismiss the pleasures given by this flight of fancy just because of its slightly bumpy landing.
