Valley Girl (2020)

The zeal in the zeitgeist for all things 80s—whether Stranger Things, the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984, or the recently-released Onward—coincides with the latent interest in musicals and/or musician-centred biopics, most recently observed in the upcoming remake of 1983’s Valley Girl.

The trailer suggests a complete retelling of the same story, somewhat similar to the way Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again stuck to an intergenerational, passing-of-the-torch style conceit that permitted a deep dive into the nostalgia surrounding the franchise.

Of course, the comfort of the familiar would wear thin without some excitement of the new, and the rearranged/cover songs peppered throughout this trailer suggests a thoughtful mix of authentic aesthetics alongside contemporary movie-making approaches.

After a micro-teaser backed by a re-recorded excerpt of The Go-Go’s classic 80s piece “We Got The Beat,” the audience is treated to an extended and edited version of this new version of the song—not wholly reimagined, but clearly a higher-fidelity and polished version that is faithful to the original. In other words, it’s more likely how those who experienced it in 1981 would remember it now, as opposed to how it really sounds today were one to do a cursory look-up of the original on Spotify. The needle is dropped on a vinyl record on screen at 0:18, summoning the offscreen music metadiegetically—the music exists somewhere between the in-world record player and the offscreen soundtrack as we see the first lyrics of the tune sung on screen and choreography at a shopping mall closely following. The trailer coyly acknowledges the in-between space the music occupies and the fantastical sound world of musicals as this scene is interjected back to the present moment. Now the protagonist Julie Richman (as a mother) playfully argues that singing and dancing on a fountain is “how [she remembers] it.”

A subtle reverb on the last word of the tune synched to a cannonball into a pool offers an effective blackout segue to the second song, which starts with a quintessentially—and clearly, unapologetically—cheesy slow synthesizer, intoning a burgeoning teenage 80s love scene underway. This segues again at 1:25 to the immediately-recognizable “Take On Me,” Norwegian group A-ha’s 1984 hit that has seen many versions over the years, including those by ska punk group Reel Big Fish (1998), British-Norwegian boy band A1 (2000), and most recently, Weezer (2019).

This version of the song begins with a single, almost plaintive-sounding clean electric guitar, with a jangly texture that is, like the other covers in this trailer, at once fresh and distinctive while also convincing of a 1980s musical aesthetic. The chorus of the song, with its rousing build-up and finish, complement the rising stakes in the trailer with a montage of dramatic dialogue and action, subsequently moving to a variety of choreographed dance scenes to finish off the trailer on a lighter note.

In all, this trailer for Valley Girl smoothly integrates its triptych arc with compelling samples of its remade musical repertoire. At the same time it celebrates and self-referentially embraces its unique pastiche as both an artefact of the 1980s and a musical, promising and assiduous update of a cult classic for a new generation.

— Curtis Perry