My First Mister (DVD)

My First Mister is a strangely “oddball” tale, and I guess you could say slightly dated movie. I remember on first seeing it 6 years ago thinking that while being exceptionally good, the movie would never sell; the reason its a modern movie selling a 70’s style story!

Jenifer (Leelee Sobieski) is a teenage girl, going through an “alternative” period of her life, this months style is the Goth look. Jenifer is very much a loner, she ...
...and dilemmas.

My First Mister is bottom line a story of unrequited love; although there is a sort of mutual love its more like the love that you have for a family member as apposed to the sort of the romantic nature; for one of our leads the knowledge of this plays hard on their mind.

R takes Jenifer under his wing offering her a job and changing her harsh image, this aspect of the story is played rather convincingly ... more

My First Mister is a strangely “oddball” tale, and I guess you could say slightly dated movie. I remember on first seeing it 6 years ago thinking that while being exceptionally good, the movie would never sell; the reason its a modern movie selling a 70’s style story!

Jenifer (Leelee Sobieski) is a teenage girl, going through an “alternative” period of her life, this months style is the Goth look. Jenifer is very much a loner, she has no friends and her relationship with her mother is slightly out of synch. One day Jenifer meets stuffy shop manager Randall Harris (Albert Brooks) who she later renames “R”; his somewhat offhand manner intrigues her and the two begin a rather unusual friendship based on achievements, fears, phobias and dilemmas.

My First Mister is bottom line a story of unrequited love; although there is a sort of mutual love its more like the love that you have for a family member as apposed to the sort of the romantic nature; for one of our leads the knowledge of this plays hard on their mind.

R takes Jenifer under his wing offering her a job and changing her harsh image, this aspect of the story is played rather convincingly by Brooks. How you see Brooks on screen is how you actually believe he is in reality, he has a certain quality of “nice” about him. At the beginning of the movie he is not so “nice” and the delivery of this side of R’s nature seems a bit of a difficult task for Brooks to achieve. Although for the entire movie Brooks plays at being aloof rather too well.

For Jenifer R is the father she never had, he coaches her on all area’s of her life, and as the movie progresses Jenifer changes from being dull and unattractive, to changing into a blooming beauty. And like Brooks, Sobieski plays this role very well. She displays the dilemmas and insecurities of a teenager incredibly well, at first resistant of the changes that R starts to make to her, but finally beginning to cave to his sense of thinking. As a tag on effect her work at school begins to improve, and things she has not eaten, seen, or enjoyed for a good many years suddenly become remarkably appealing.

There are some lovely scenes where having employed her to work in his men’s formal clothing store he tries a Pygmalion approach to Jenifer, teaching her how to dress, how to hold herself, and how to speak. Jenifer of course adapts all of these elements to fit into her own particular style, much to the horror, and later as the movie progresses amusement to R.

My First Mister is an incredibly nice movie, in satisfaction feeling it gives anyone in their 30’s the same sort of feeling we got when we first saw Kramer Vs Kramer or The Champ; this is a very nice movie. Swearing is reduced to the first few minutes of the story to illustrate the way that Jenifer is going off the rails; there is no sex, and certainly no violence. And this is where that 70’s element I mentioned comes in; these are values that while thirty year olds and onwards might want to see, and certainly want their kids to see; the audiences of the time and even to this very date really don’t want to see this type of movie. When you think about the movies of 2001 a few of them starring Sobieski (who was enjoying her most popular time), My First Mister sits far away from all the other movies ; it sits in a genre all of its own. As a side comment I must also state that the movie seldom gives any indication of exactly when the story is supposed to be set, it has certain leanings towards the 80's in my eyes.

The movie from a casting and plot angle works perfectly and you experience all the highs and lows you do when you watch any “nice movie” even though you might be too proud to admit it. From one angle I guess the movie is far too nice. The film is like a morality lesson teaching those who don’t understand the difference of wrong and right, personally I walked away from the movie feeling quite pleased, as if finally we might see a slight turn back to the days when life was so much more innocent, but that view is kept firmly in the movie and never even attempts to slide off the screen into our everyday life.

My First Mister is released on the Paramount budget label with an RRP of £5.99 or 3 for £15 pretty much anywhere at present. The DVD has no special features but does feature German, Spanish, French, and Polish subtitles. 

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