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Movie Review: 'Here on Earth' Teen-age love story: Actors lift the material in the overly familiar 'Here on Earth' Friday, March 24, 2000 By Barbara Vancheri Post-Gazette Staff Writer
"Here on Earth" takes familiar stories -- rich boy vs. farm boy, rich boy falls for working-class girl, rich boy struggles with harsh, money-obsessed father, nobility in the face of illness -- and puts three fresh faces on them.
Those faces belong to Leelee Sobieski, Chris Klein and Josh Hartnett, who lift this Lifetime Jr. exercise to a higher than deserved level. Without them, this teen romance-turned-weepie might be laughably bad. It has not a whit of originality but, then again, the 14-year-olds in the audience probably won't have seen its cinematic antecedents so it might feel new to them.
I'm not a reader, regular or otherwise, of Teen People or Teen, but I expect the amount of copy on Klein will be multiplying exponentially. He is destined for heartthrob status, if he hasn't reached that already, and it's no accident he is shown naked from the waist up as he works in the midday sun.
Klein plays Kelley Morse, a wealthy private-school senior who takes his new silver Mercedes convertible -- a gift from his father, who can't make graduation because he is in London on business -- for a spin with a couple of pals. They end up at a nearby diner populated by the locals, including Jasper (Hartnett) and girlfriend Sam (Sobieski).
Kelley is cocky, insulting and just asking for a rumble. "I would say you're poor... and I would say you're not too bright, either," he sniffs at Jasper. They tussle in the diner and then take it on the road where they drag race and end up crashing into a gas station, where the pumps ignite and burn down the diner.
A judge orders Kelley to volunteer during the summer with the crew rebuilding the restaurant. Since there is no motel in that neck of the woods, he ends up renting a room from Jasper's family. Before long, Sam is looking longingly at Kelley, who's looking back -- much to Jasper's displeasure.
Sam has been Jasper's lifelong friend and date, but she's drawn to Kelley's, uh, charms, including his love of poetry and the peaceful woods that no one else is ever wandering through. His father, plus a serious health problem that is telegraphed early on (there's too much talk about heaven to not suspect someone's headed that way), interrupt an idyllic summer romance.
"Here on Earth," set in Massachusetts but actually filmed in Minnesota, was directed by Mark Piznarski, whose credits include the television mini-series "The '60s," along with various hour-long dramatic episodes. It was written by Michael Seitzman, who wrote and directed the 1997 comedy "Farmer & Chase." Neither brings anything new to the party.
Klein moves up a notch from his supporting roles in "Election" and "American Pie," and Sobieski confirms her status as one of the brightest lights of her generation. A couple of excellent actors, Bruce Greenwood and Michael Rooker, are among the token adults but they don't get a whole lot to do.
Although a fatal illness tilts the romantic triangle, it is handled with a featherweight touch -- almost weirdly so. In fact, a single reference to a diagnosis (delivered in medical terms) provoked an out-loud question from a member of a preview audience trying to decipher it. "Here on Earth" hits us over the head with virtually everything else, but handles this in the most delicate, unrealistic but PG-13 of ways.
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Rating: PG-13 for brief teen drinking, drag-racing, sensuality and illness.