by Frank Calvillo
If Careful What You Wish For had been a major studio release opening wide rather than the on demand title it actually is, it would have been a prime candidate for my Box Office Alternatives column and the perfect excuse for me to write about the odd thriller The Teacher in which Jay “Dennis the Menace” North spends his summer vacation sleeping with his high school English teacher played by Angel Tompkins. The whole film was the sort of steamy sordid thriller experience that many similarly-themed films of ’60s and ’70s were built around that comes complete with awkward love scenes and the theme of bygone youth at the center. The new Nick Jonas vehicle Careful What You Wish For may not be the exploitation fest that The Teacher was, yet that doesn’t mean it shies away from proudly wearing it’s B-movie DNA on its sleeve in endless amounts.
Released three years after production ended, Careful What You Wish For tells the story of Doug (Jonas), a teenager spending the summer at his parents’ cottage and working at the local bar and grill. When the super rich Elliot (Dermot Mulroney) and his trophy wife Lena (Isabel Lucas) rent out the lavish home next door, Doug is immediately intrigued by his new neighbors. However, when an innocent flirtation with Lena turns into an intense affair, Doug finds himself in over his head and in the kind of danger which threatens his future, and possibly his life.
This is the kind of movie that feels like it was made in the span of a week with a $2 budget. And it shows. There’s a choppy, pasted together feel which isn’t helped by the ridiculously fast pace. Perhaps that works in this scenario since fans of the genre don’t necessarily want to spend time on character and story, preferring instead to get right down to business. Some of the scenes play out like soft core porn, but that’s to be expected given that the script feels like it was literally written on the way to the set with numerous lines such as, “Anything worth doing is worth doing all the way,” which comes courtesy of Elliot in one of many pieces of dialogue which also serves as a sexual innuendo.
And yet there are so many reasons why none of the film’s numerous flaws matter. In a way its refreshing to see Careful What You Wish For revel in the kind of movie that it is. The film is far from perfect, but it’s ultimately the kind of tight little erotic thriller that simply doesn’t exist anymore. This is proven at the midpoint when the movie enters into full-fledged thriller territory, generating a couple of genuinely exciting moments. Even if the audience for it won’t extend beyond fans of the genre and the lead actor, there are still plenty of people who will delightfully lap up this kind of self-contained and enjoyably disposable form of entertainment as a way of escaping their summer blues.
Careful What You Wish For is also another entry in the “pop stars turning to acting as a way of expanding their resumes” category. The film is certainly in keeping with Jonas’s choices so far in terms of picking projects he can simply have fun with, as evidenced by his recent turn in Scream Queens and the upcoming Goat. While its hard to buy his character’s geek-ish background, Jonas does convey an undeniable good guy quality which shows he can certainly a film on his own. Aside from Jonas, Mulroney is naturally fantastic as the menacing husband, and it’s always a pleasure to see him on the screen. If only the same could be said for Lucas, who brings no color whatsoever to her character, who in a way was always destined to be colorless.
There’s no doubt whatsoever with regards to the kind of film this is. Everyone from the audience to the filmmakers themselves knows the score of Careful What You Wish For. That being said, everyone pretty much wins here. Jonas gets more film experience, while lovers of the genre get to feast on another fun entry. Even though I don’t necessarily remember Doug actually wishing for anything, the filmmakers’ wish of producing good old fashioned trashy summertime fun has come true.
