Poison Ivy (film)
Encyclopedia
Poison Ivy is a 1992 thriller and drama film
directed by Katt Shea. Andy Ruben (who also produced the film) transformed Melissa Goddard's story into the screenplay
. It stars Drew Barrymore
, Sara Gilbert
, Tom Skerritt
and Cheryl Ladd
. The original music score is composed by David Michael Frank. The film was shot in Los Angeles, California
. Leonardo DiCaprio
had a small role.
It was nominated for the 1992 Grand Jury prize of Best Film at the Sundance Festival. Sara Gilbert was nominated for Best Supporting Female at the 1993 Independent Spirit Awards
. Although it did not fare very well at the box office
grossing $1,829,804 with its limited theatrical release to 20 movie theaters, the film received favorable word-of-mouth, and became a success on cable
and video
in the mid 1990s. The film has spawned several sequels and is marketed with the tagline "What Ivy wants, Ivy gets." The most recent sequel, Poison Ivy: The Secret Society (Poison Ivy 4) was released in Summer 2008.
The character Ivy was ranked at #6 on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly
.
While sitting in the office for phoning in a bomb threat to a local TV station (that her father works for) she sees Ivy walk in and begins to talk to her. Later that day, when Sylvie's father picks her up, Ivy asks for a ride. At first Darrel, Sylvie's father, is reluctant, but grudgingly compromises. Ivy tells Sylvie she gets car sick and asks to ride in the front (a ruse to get near Darrel, Ivy has a bit of a fetish for older men). Ivy puts her feet on the dashboard and allows her mini-skirt to shrug back onto her hip revealing her legs. Darrel takes notice.
A few weeks later, after Sylvie is no longer grounded, they meet again at the same hangout. They walk to Sylvie's house together, on the way Sylvie tells Ivy that Darrel is her adoptive father and that her biological father was black. She also says that she once tried to kill herself. Sylvie invites Ivy into her parent's mansion. They walk into the living room overlooking the San Fernando Valley. Ivy says that if she were to kill herself she'd like to fall. Sylvie's sickly mother, Georgie, walks in on their conversation, and it turns out that Sylvie was lying about her attempted suicide and her father. Georgie does not want Sylvie to be friends with Ivy initially, but Ivy later wins Georgie over by talking about her scholarship and helping her unblock her oxygen tank.
Sylvie narrates that Georgie liked Ivy's energy and that her parents enjoyed Ivy so much that Ivy had practically moved in. Ivy and Sylvie sleep in the same bed and share clothes, but when Georgie offers to lend Ivy some of her clothes because of their similar figures, Ivy begins to wear the expensive clothes.
After a spat with her parents, Sylvie says she wants to do something to "make her parents cringe" and Ivy convinces her to get a tattoo so that "they can be like blood sisters".
Darrel decides to throw a party at his house to try and improve his failing career, and he enlists Sylvie to help him. When Sylvie's boss at the charity center calls Ivy picks up the phone and tells him that Sylvie can work the night of the party, which allows Ivy to fill in. She straightens her hair and wears one of Georgie's dresses. That night, after the party, she dances in the kitchen and then begins to dance with Darrel. Georgie walks in on them and storms upstairs. While Georgie and Darrel are sitting together, Ivy walks in and tells Georgie that she is sorry. She claims that Darrel came into the kitchen to cry, and that she was only hugging him to make him feel better. Georgie believes her and accepts a glass of champagne from Ivy. She then falls unconscious because of the pills Ivy had put in the champagne beforehand. Ivy sits on the bed next to Georgie, and begins to massage Darrel with her foot while he kisses her legs.
Ivy appears to change over the next few days. She continues to straighten her hair and wears more and more of Georgie's clothing. Sylvie becomes increasingly irritated with Ivy and throws a fit when she finds Ivy with her dog in Georgie's sports car. She makes Fred (the dog) choose between her and Ivy. Ivy cheats and shakes the treats in her pockets while she calls Fred. That day, Sylvie skips school and tries to spend some time alone to sort things out in her head. Darrel picks Ivy up and they go out into the forest where Ivy gets Darrel drunk while they have sex.
The next morning, Georgie plays a record that Sylvie made for her and walks out onto her balcony. Ivy walks up behind her and begins talking to Georgie.
Then, without warning, Ivy pushes Georgie off the balcony and makes it look like a suicide (which Georgie regularly threatened).
A few weeks later, Sylvie washes Georgie's old sports car and Ivy walks up with the urn holding Georgie's remains. She suggests that they take a ride as a final goodbye to Georgie. While she's driving, Ivy begins to hum the song that Georgie was playing the morning Ivy pushed her. Sylvie confronts her and Ivy crashes the car to avoid answering. She moves Sylvie into the driver's seat to incriminate Sylvie.
In the hospital, Sylvie hallucinates that her mother is sitting in front of her. This inspires her to get back to her house in an attempt to save her father from Ivy. When she gets to her house, it is storming. She runs inside to get out of the rain, experiencing hallucinations all along the way. When she gets inside, she sees Darrel and Ivy having sex and flees the room.
Darrel goes to look for Sylvie and tells Ivy to stay inside. Ivy goes up to Georgie's old room and puts in the tape that was playing the morning Georgie died. She puts on Georgie's robe and walks out onto the balcony. Sylvie is sitting outside in the storm and sees the light and, due to her very serious head injury, believes that it is her mother on the balcony. She goes up to the room. Sylvie sees her mother turn around from the balcony.
Sylvie tells Georgie that she loves her and Georgie says she loves Sylvie too. They kiss, but then Sylvie comes out of her hallucination and sees that it is really Ivy. Sylvie attacks Ivy and they fight. The fight goes out onto the balcony and Sylvie pushes Ivy off her. Ivy goes off the balcony, but manages to keep from falling by holding on to Sylvie's necklace. The chain breaks and Ivy falls to her death, still clutching the necklace.
The film ends with Sylvie narrating that she still loves and misses Ivy, and that she forgives her because "she was even more alone than me".
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Katt Shea. Andy Ruben (who also produced the film) transformed Melissa Goddard's story into the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
. It stars Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, Sara Gilbert
Sara Gilbert
Sara Gilbert is an American actress best known for her role as Darlene Conner from 1988–1997 in the U.S. sitcom Roseanne.-Early life:Gilbert was born Sara Rebecca Abeles in Santa Monica, California. Her parents are Barbara Crane and Harold Abeles. Her two older siblings, Melissa Gilbert and...
, Tom Skerritt
Tom Skerritt
Thomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962.-Early life:...
and Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...
. The original music score is composed by David Michael Frank. The film was shot in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
had a small role.
It was nominated for the 1992 Grand Jury prize of Best Film at the Sundance Festival. Sara Gilbert was nominated for Best Supporting Female at the 1993 Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
. Although it did not fare very well at the box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
grossing $1,829,804 with its limited theatrical release to 20 movie theaters, the film received favorable word-of-mouth, and became a success on cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
in the mid 1990s. The film has spawned several sequels and is marketed with the tagline "What Ivy wants, Ivy gets." The most recent sequel, Poison Ivy: The Secret Society (Poison Ivy 4) was released in Summer 2008.
The character Ivy was ranked at #6 on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
.
Plot
Sylvie Cooper is a teenage girl at a private school for the wealthy. She first meets "Ivy", a poor but intelligent and highly trashy girl, at a local hangout where Ivy enjoyed rope-swinging from a tree. A young boy runs up and says, "Come on! A dog got hit!" Sylvie kneels next to the still breathing dog when all of a sudden Ivy crushes the dog's skull with a pipe (to put it out of its misery).While sitting in the office for phoning in a bomb threat to a local TV station (that her father works for) she sees Ivy walk in and begins to talk to her. Later that day, when Sylvie's father picks her up, Ivy asks for a ride. At first Darrel, Sylvie's father, is reluctant, but grudgingly compromises. Ivy tells Sylvie she gets car sick and asks to ride in the front (a ruse to get near Darrel, Ivy has a bit of a fetish for older men). Ivy puts her feet on the dashboard and allows her mini-skirt to shrug back onto her hip revealing her legs. Darrel takes notice.
A few weeks later, after Sylvie is no longer grounded, they meet again at the same hangout. They walk to Sylvie's house together, on the way Sylvie tells Ivy that Darrel is her adoptive father and that her biological father was black. She also says that she once tried to kill herself. Sylvie invites Ivy into her parent's mansion. They walk into the living room overlooking the San Fernando Valley. Ivy says that if she were to kill herself she'd like to fall. Sylvie's sickly mother, Georgie, walks in on their conversation, and it turns out that Sylvie was lying about her attempted suicide and her father. Georgie does not want Sylvie to be friends with Ivy initially, but Ivy later wins Georgie over by talking about her scholarship and helping her unblock her oxygen tank.
Sylvie narrates that Georgie liked Ivy's energy and that her parents enjoyed Ivy so much that Ivy had practically moved in. Ivy and Sylvie sleep in the same bed and share clothes, but when Georgie offers to lend Ivy some of her clothes because of their similar figures, Ivy begins to wear the expensive clothes.
After a spat with her parents, Sylvie says she wants to do something to "make her parents cringe" and Ivy convinces her to get a tattoo so that "they can be like blood sisters".
Darrel decides to throw a party at his house to try and improve his failing career, and he enlists Sylvie to help him. When Sylvie's boss at the charity center calls Ivy picks up the phone and tells him that Sylvie can work the night of the party, which allows Ivy to fill in. She straightens her hair and wears one of Georgie's dresses. That night, after the party, she dances in the kitchen and then begins to dance with Darrel. Georgie walks in on them and storms upstairs. While Georgie and Darrel are sitting together, Ivy walks in and tells Georgie that she is sorry. She claims that Darrel came into the kitchen to cry, and that she was only hugging him to make him feel better. Georgie believes her and accepts a glass of champagne from Ivy. She then falls unconscious because of the pills Ivy had put in the champagne beforehand. Ivy sits on the bed next to Georgie, and begins to massage Darrel with her foot while he kisses her legs.
Ivy appears to change over the next few days. She continues to straighten her hair and wears more and more of Georgie's clothing. Sylvie becomes increasingly irritated with Ivy and throws a fit when she finds Ivy with her dog in Georgie's sports car. She makes Fred (the dog) choose between her and Ivy. Ivy cheats and shakes the treats in her pockets while she calls Fred. That day, Sylvie skips school and tries to spend some time alone to sort things out in her head. Darrel picks Ivy up and they go out into the forest where Ivy gets Darrel drunk while they have sex.
The next morning, Georgie plays a record that Sylvie made for her and walks out onto her balcony. Ivy walks up behind her and begins talking to Georgie.
Then, without warning, Ivy pushes Georgie off the balcony and makes it look like a suicide (which Georgie regularly threatened).
A few weeks later, Sylvie washes Georgie's old sports car and Ivy walks up with the urn holding Georgie's remains. She suggests that they take a ride as a final goodbye to Georgie. While she's driving, Ivy begins to hum the song that Georgie was playing the morning Ivy pushed her. Sylvie confronts her and Ivy crashes the car to avoid answering. She moves Sylvie into the driver's seat to incriminate Sylvie.
In the hospital, Sylvie hallucinates that her mother is sitting in front of her. This inspires her to get back to her house in an attempt to save her father from Ivy. When she gets to her house, it is storming. She runs inside to get out of the rain, experiencing hallucinations all along the way. When she gets inside, she sees Darrel and Ivy having sex and flees the room.
Darrel goes to look for Sylvie and tells Ivy to stay inside. Ivy goes up to Georgie's old room and puts in the tape that was playing the morning Georgie died. She puts on Georgie's robe and walks out onto the balcony. Sylvie is sitting outside in the storm and sees the light and, due to her very serious head injury, believes that it is her mother on the balcony. She goes up to the room. Sylvie sees her mother turn around from the balcony.
Sylvie tells Georgie that she loves her and Georgie says she loves Sylvie too. They kiss, but then Sylvie comes out of her hallucination and sees that it is really Ivy. Sylvie attacks Ivy and they fight. The fight goes out onto the balcony and Sylvie pushes Ivy off her. Ivy goes off the balcony, but manages to keep from falling by holding on to Sylvie's necklace. The chain breaks and Ivy falls to her death, still clutching the necklace.
The film ends with Sylvie narrating that she still loves and misses Ivy, and that she forgives her because "she was even more alone than me".
Sequels
- In 1996, New Line CinemaNew Line CinemaNew Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
released the direct-to-video sequel Poison Ivy II: LilyPoison Ivy II: LilyPoison Ivy II: Lily is a 1996 thriller film starring Alyssa Milano, and a direct-to-video sequel to the 1992 film Poison Ivy, starring Drew Barrymore. It was directed by Anne Goursaud and written by Chloe King. The original music score is composed by Joseph Williams. The film is marketed with the...
, starring Alyssa MilanoAlyssa MilanoAlyssa Jayne Milano is an American actress and former singer, known for her childhood role as Samantha Micelli in the sitcom Who's the Boss? and an eight-year stint as Phoebe Halliwell on the series Charmed. She was also a series regular on the original Melrose Place portraying the role of...
. - In 1997, the second direct-to-video release, Poison Ivy: The New SeductionPoison Ivy: The New SeductionPoison Ivy: The New Seduction is a 1997 erotic thriller starring Jaime Pressly, and the third film in the Poison Ivy series, which consisted of Poison Ivy , Poison Ivy II: Lily and Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society . It was directed by Kurt Voss and written by Karen Kelly...
, starring Jamie Pressly, was released. - In 2008, the fourth film in the franchise, Poison Ivy: The Secret Society, premiered on the Lifetime Movie NetworkLifetime Movie NetworkLifetime Movie Network is a cable channel that is part of Lifetime Entertainment Services, LLC, a subsidiary of A&E Television Networks, LLC. A&E Television Networks is a joint venture of the Disney-ABC Television Group, Hearst Corporation and NBCUniversal. LMN offers women-oriented movies...
.