Few movies define my early adolescence like this one. It came out when I was ten years old. I had watched Michael J. Fox on TV ("Family Ties"), and I was excited to see this movie. When the movie was released, it was a smash hit. The buzz about it was enough that I got very excited to see it even as a young boy. I first saw the movie on video, and I loved it instantly. As a young boy, I didn't appreciate all of its complexities, but I did love the comedy and the action sequences.
Only now do I realize just how special this movie is. It is part science fiction, part romantic comedy, part screwball comedy, part satire, and wholly entertaining. Michael J. Fox plays Marty McFly. He lives in a typical suburb with two pathetic parents in the year 1985. His father George (Crispin Glover) has spent his life being bullied by a local thug named Biff Tannen. Biff makes George do all of his work for him. This situation has caused George's wife Lorraine (Lea Thompson) to turn to the bottle for comfort. Marty seeks any escape possible from his home life. This comes in two ways. First, in his girlfriend Jennifer. And second, in his good friend Dr. Emmett Brown (a wonderfully zany Christopher Lloyd). Doc Brown has invented a time machine. In a remarkable turn of events, Marty uses the time machine and ends up in 1955 during the early stages of his parents' courtship. However, Marty's presence keeps his parents from meeting, and his own existence becomes endangered. This is made even more complicated by the fact that Marty's mother falls in love with him instead of his father. Marty has to figure out a way not only to get the time machine working with 1955 technology, but also to get his parents to fall in love so they can eventually conceive him. The setup alone is outrageous and entertaining. The situations that it causes are movie legend.
Since Marty is seeing his parents as young people that are his own age, he has a certain omniscience. He knows his parents' stories, or at least the ones they have told him. The truth that he sees is obviously somewhat different at times than what his parents had told him. Also, there is a certain power that Marty has due to his own history. So, when he confronts Biff Tannen as a 17 year old, he can feel free to treat him in ways he would never treat his father's friend in 1985. As he clubs Biff and ends up chasing his car into a truck full of manure, one cannot help but think that Marty takes a lot of satisfaction in pummeling this jerk who has terrorized his father.
But the comedic situation which resonates the most is the Oedipal plot device of Marty's mother falling in love with him. This creates moments in the movie that are at once hilarious and horribly uncomfortable. As Marty attempts to play matchmaker for his own parents, the situations in which he finds himself make for one tight spot after another. While all this is going on with his parents, Marty also has to work with Doc Brown on a way to get him back to his own time.
Movies like this are small miracles. Robert Zemekis directed this film, and he does an amazing job of pulling all of the subplots together to make a coherent single story. This is done in a way wherein the action never lets up, the characters are believable, and the climax of the film actually brings you to the edge of your seat. Since the movie tells such a timeless story, it holds up well even though the movie's time setting is a big part of it. The movie is able to be timeless but still capture a moment in time. Even though the movie ended up having two sequels (which were both good I might add), they don't hold a candle to the original. This is one of those pieces of movie magic where all of the pieces came together in a very special way.
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