Forbidden Fruits is what happens when you are dead set on making another Mean Girls, Heathers, or The Craft, and then give up and decide you’re ok if it’s just another meh horror film. Starting with the grammatically challenged title, Forbidden Fruits was just not quite the film it wanted to be … despite containing the seeds of greatness within. But it’s still young; maybe it will grow up to be something better one day.
The scene is a Dallas mall. Huh. I guess those things do still exist. Good for them. The cool kids [read: “the fruit”], Apple (Lili Reinhart), Fig (Alexandra Shipp), and Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), all work at Free Eden, a high-end clothing store, of course. The women are resistant to the girl who works at the pretzel counter, but decide to give pretzel girl a chance upon learning her name is “Pumpkin” (Lola Tung). OK, I like where this is going; you have a fruit coven and you need a “Fall.” Sure, this makes sense. Before long, Pumpkin is a Forbidden Fruit. Sorry, “Fruits.” Rrrrr, I hate this title.
Apple is the head girl and controls the action. We can assume this film is going to be far more style than plot when she concocts a spell using a cowboy boot as a vessel. Forbidden Fruits definitely has some moments, like when the quartet all agree that part of their “arrangement” means they only communicate with boys in emojis – and that includes when face-to-face.
OTOH, Forbidden Fruits bugged me. It didn’t have the obsessive cult-like-obedience, alienation, or humor of Mean Girls or Heathers. It didn’t have the fun in Mean Girls or the vocab of Heathers, even though it clearly attempted all of these things, and it didn’t have the witchery of The Craft, another film it looked up to like a pre-pubescent tween coed eying her prom queen sister. What it did have was noob Pumpkin collecting dirt on all the other members. Kinda makes you wonder why they invited her in, huh?
Seeing Diablo Cody as an executive producer tracks. Ms. Cody has tried, unsuccessfully, her entire career to make the next Heathers. I’m sure she was tickled to see the opening scene in which a horny man pulls up to a parked Apple, starts jacking it at her suggestion … and then she dumps hot coffee on his exposed member. If the film had
continued to follow that, shall we say, vein, I would have liked it a lot better. Sure, it did have moments, like “Code Dill,” a warning that ex-Fruits member Pickle is on a rampage, and a restaurant called the Yeast Garden. I could get behind these brief glances at brilliance.
Forbidden Fruits is commanded by four “youngsters” who are neither terribly young, nor any of whom can carry a film. Hence, the screenplay has no choice but to introduce some blood to get our attention. If writer/director Meredith Alloway is ever allowayed to make another film, I’ll be keen on seeing it, but I cannot recommend this effort. Not enough style, not enough substance, not enough moments worth committing to memory.
Apple, Fig, Pumpkin, Cherry
Mall co-eds all “Oh so *very*”
Had a coven, of sorts
Comprised of chic skorts
And extra-curriculars bordering on scary
Rated R, 103 Minutes
Director: Meredith Alloway
Writer: Lily Houghton, Meredith Alloway
Genre: Mean Girl-ish
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Lesbians, apparently (Don’t ask me; I saw what I saw)
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Horny high school boys … you will be disappointed
