Back to the Future (1985)

 

Back to the Future has some tremendous fun with the implications of time travel, particularly the long-held notion that if you travel to the past, you must be careful not to disrupt the sequence of events that leads to the present from which you have traveled. Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly winds up going back to November 5, 1955, thanks to some Libyan terrorists (no, I never got the point of that) and a time travel machine, a hilariously repurposed DeLorean, invented by his friend Doc Brown (a crazed Christopher Lloyd, out of sync with almost every other actor’s performance in the film). Marty meets the earlier version of his parents, Lorraine (Lea Thompson) and George (Crispin Glover, competing with Lloyd for the oddest line readings in the film), but he interrupts their “meet-cute” and sets off a chain of events that he must correct, else he and his siblings disappear because they will never be born because their parents never got together…. I don’t want to belabor the “science” here. A picture of him and his siblings serves as a constant reminder of how little time he has to correct his disruptive actions. The plot can get a bit convoluted at times, such as the “solution” involving Marty driving past the clock tower on the exact night that it was struck by lightning of 1955, but that’s a small quibble. The joy of the film most often comes from the contrasts between 1955 and 1985, even the small ones. For example, what is a porn theater in 1985 was thirty years earlier playing Cattle Queen of Montana (starring the man who was president in 1985, Ronald Reagan). Mayor Goldie Wilson worked as a soda jerk back then. And one of the funniest contrasts involves Marty’s grandparents in 1955 criticizing his upbringing, not knowing that he is their grandson. They call his parents “idiots” and vow to disown Lorraine if she has a kid like that, which of course she does. Lorraine, a bit of an alcoholic in 1985, isn’t quite the goody-two-shoes she’s portrayed herself to be, and when 1955 Lorraine falls in love with Marty—don’t get started on the Freudian implications there—he has to get her to fall in love with George instead so that they can have their first kiss at the prom, which has that marvelous 1950s theme of “Enchantment under the Sea.” Unfortunately, George’s nemesis for three decades, Biff (Tanner F. Wilson), always seems to interfere at the wrong time. The cleverness of the film’s script emphasizes some humorous coincidences. Marvin Berry, cousin to Chuck, is the leader of the Starlighters, and Marty’s performance of “Go, Johnny, Go” with the band inspires Marvin to call the man who is more commonly credited with being a founder of rock and roll music. Marty also introduces Chuck Berry’s famed “duckwalk” and designs the first skateboard. Fox’s charisma really helps to make the jokes work as well as they do. Look at his puzzled look when young Lorraine keeps calling him Calvin because she believes the band of his underwear spells out his name; it’s spot on. It’s little wonder that Back to the Future, his first major film role after years of starring on the TV series Family Ties, led him to an even higher level of stardom.

Oscar Win: Best Sound Effects Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Best Sound, and Best Original Song (“The Power of Love”)