Review: Better Off Dead

I made my family watch Better Off Dead for mandatory culture night recently. I remember seeing it when I was growing up, and it influenced me to choose French for my high school foreign language requirement.

Apart from being a funny movie (in an awkward cringe kind of way), it also has some good lessons about relationships.

At the beginning of the movie, we see Lane’s room, which is practically wallpapered with pictures of his girlfriend Beth. However, Beth soon breaks up with him to go out with Roy Stalin, the super-hunk captain of the ski team (and super-jerk).

This devastates Lane, who makes four suicide attempts (hanging, carbon monoxide, self-immolation, and jumping from a bridge into traffic) before finally taking an interest in Monique, the French foreign exchange student who lives across the street. When Roy makes an unwanted advance on Monique, Lane challenges Roy to a “ski-off” or something, which Lane wins to everyone’s acclaim. Beth renews her interest in him, but he brushes her off to pursue Monique.

The lesson in all this is that relationships shouldn’t be about gaining status and self-esteem, something both Lane and Beth are guilty of.

Beth was never particularly interested in Lane himself; rather, she liked the idea of being liked. When a “bigger, better deal” came along in Roy, she liked the boost in social status that came with dating him. It didn’t matter that Roy treated her badly; what mattered is how she could feel about herself.

Conversely, Lane drew a lot of self-esteem from dating Beth. When she broke up with him (after six months!), he lost all sense of purpose and self-worth. As men, we can’t do that.

Lane’s relationship with Monique, on the other hand, grew as they helped each other. Monique helped Lane fix his car, skied with him, and inspired him to achieve great things. Lane reciprocated by getting her away from her creepy host family making her dinner and – at the end – took her to Dodgers stadium.

This lesson that relationships are about helping each other, not self-esteem and status, has taken me decades to understand. It’s a good life lesson for the young, and I’m glad I got to share it with my kids.