Laurel Canyon

Laurel Canyon is not necessarily the typical chick flick, but I think it still speaks to women in its own sort of messed up way. Immediately we see that Jane was not exactly the ideal mother, so her son tries to be everything she is not. He thinks his mother, Jane, is crazy and wants to be as far away from her as possible by being as unlike her as possible. He has become very serious and stressed. He worries about his career, his relationship with his girlfriend, Alex, what Alex’s family thinks of him, what Alex thinks of his mother, and he also seems to feel inferior to his smarter girlfriend. It is clear that he wants to keep his girlfriend from his mother because of his insistence on finding an apartment and telling her to stay in a hotel. His mother, Jane, is a very free-spirited, care-free woman who does not take life too seriously and likes to have a good time. Alex is drawn to Jane because she has never seen someone so relaxed and down to earth. Her family is obviously very serious and stuck up, as we see in one of the first scenes, and she is trying to get a taste of the other side. She wants to be bad and go against everything her parents and her boyfriend have been pushing her towards. She is curious about these people who are so unlike her and everything she has known. Her boyfriend, Sam, sees Alex’s attraction to Jane and that lifestyle, yet he is too focused on another woman and his new career to do anything about it. The other woman knows Sam has a girlfriend and has even met her, yet she still tries to seduce Sam and ruin the relationship. In the end, Alex and Sam seem to have both grown after the experience staying with Jane. Sam seems to have grown closer to his mother, and Alex has opened up and seen a new world through Jane and her friends.