In 1984, director Keva Rosenfeld made a documentary about life at a high school in Torrance, southern California; a sort of real-life Fast Times at Ridgemont High, that screened on public television in the States and sank quickly into obscurity. Thirty years later, the film – now a time-capsule of embarrassing 80s fashions and mobile-phone-free lifestyles – has been freshened up with a 20-minute coda showing what happened to some of the interviewees. Somewhat predictably, rebels have become cops, preppie girls with Princess Di haircuts have become lefty educationalists, cheerleaders work in marketing, stoners regret not studying more, and almost no one is pursuing the career they’d imagined in high school. At least the cheerful Finnish exchange student, the original film’s narrator, seems settled and contented. Neither the 80s material nor the followup digs terribly deeply into the subjects’ psyches or has much to say about the sociology of American high schools, but it’s an amusing, easily digestible exercise in time travel.
