The Chocolate War

WORDS: Andrew Wright

John Hughes established himself in the 1980s by giving a voice to teenagers of the era. He  understood teenage loneliness, bullying, anxiety and humiliation – or at least attempted to  make generation X feel heard. Hughes was determined to show they weren’t labels – they  were human beings, dammit! 

Yet, by showing teens as they were, Hughes's success became the new normal. And, as  happens with most cornerstones, something eventually comes along to chip away at the  edges. Or blow it up. 

Released five months apart in 1988 and 1989, The Chocolate War and Heathers offered up  very different takes on the 80s teen experience. 

Michael Lehmann's jet-black comedy Heathers rejected Hughes's comforting assertions,  instead daring to suggest that, actually, some teenagers – like adults – can be deliberately  cynical and cruel. 

They shared a lot of similarities, but where The Breakfast Club’s misunderstood teens had a  good cry, a dance montage and an unnecessary make-over, Heathers poisoned the leader of  the clique – and wanted to blow up the school.  

The flipside of this was The Chocolate War. The directorial debut of Keith Gordon (and  adapted by Gordon from Robert Cormier’s novel), The Chocolate War shows what happens  when an invisible teenage schoolboy dares to disturb the universe by saying no. 

Jerry Renault, played by Ilan Mitchell-Smith (who had previously played teen nerd Wyatt in  John Hughes’s Weird Science), is a Catholic schoolboy struggling with the recent death of his  mother and both he and his father are unable to communicate their pain. 

Like any good all-boys Catholic school, Trinity has a secret society: The Vigils, whose aloof  Assigner is the Machiavellian Archie. The Vigils keep the rest of the school in step by  assigning tasks – usually petty and involving some level of humiliation – and the boys know  non-compliance is a far worse outcome. 

Puppet-master Archie is in league with the devious acting headmaster, Brother Leon. Having  committed the school to an unprecedented chocolate sales drive, Leon desperately needs  Archie and the Vigils to ensure every box is sold. 

But Archie assigns Renault a secret mission: refuse to sell the chocolates. 

Brother Leon is perturbed by Renault’s refusal to do his bit for the school spirit. But once the  assignment is over, Renault continues in his rebellion, never explaining why. It is a private  decision that belongs entirely to him. 

And that’s when Renault ceases being invisible, as his one-man “rebellion” becomes a focal  point for the ire of Archie and Brother Leon – the two forms of institutional power - fearing  Renault’s symbolic act of disobedience could inspire others to follow suit.

Renault is never depicted as a hero. He’s a physically weak, unsure, introspective boy who  keeps himself to himself, grieving under the surface with no way to express it. Ilan Mitchell Smith grounds Renault in a vulnerable stillness. There’s a wistful, wounded fragility to  Mitchell-Smith’s performance as a teenager trying to play the game, whether it’s football or  life. It is often left to his dream world to show the audience what’s really going on inside of  him. 

Wally Ward plays Archie as a detached, dead-eyed King Lizard, pleased with his own  cleverness and oozing disdain for everyone else - even his Smithers-esque lapdog assistant,  Obie. Strong-arm stuff isn’t his style. Archie orchestrates petty pranks and precise  humiliation as psychological warfare. There’s a tension to Ward’s performance, as if Archie  is constantly running all the angles under the surface. 

John Glover is the preening, showboating Brother Leon, whose confident belittling is about  as passive-aggressive as it gets. Far more complex than your typical Ed Rooney 1980s  control-is-power authority figure, Glover embodies Leon with a broad, toothy smile. He’s an  eager showman in the classroom, armed with a cheery, animated tone and a cane. 

Writer/director Keith Gordon achieves a washed-out, overcast ambience. He has a quiet confidence, even when leaning into the more surreal edits and sudden shifts into fantasy.  There’s a distinctly stark atmosphere, complemented by Seattle’s grey perma-drizzle. 

The use of music is impressive for such a small film, ranging from Peter Gabriel's I Have the  Touch and We Do as We're Told to Yazoo's Only You and In My Room. ‘Running Up That Hill’  by Kate Bush is the perfect lament: “It doesn’t hurt me, do you wanna feel how it feels?” 

Heathers and The Chocolate War flopped upon release, yet Heathers found its place in the  world as a belated cult hit-turned-musical. Tonally miles apart from the heightened dark  comedy fantasy and quotable zingers of Heathers, The Chocolate War is a far more personal  story. Anyone who ever drifted through school unnoticed will recognise something of Jerry  Renault. Unlike Heathers, The Chocolate War is not about resistance against bullies – this is  resistance against the helplessness Renault feels following his mother's death. 

“There’s nothing anyone could do.” “It’s God’s will.” “It’s just life.” 

Why has the film been overlooked? It doesn’t cater to the standard audience desires of  courageous endings and triumphant victories. The ending is one of the rare occasions where  the film adaptation improves on the novel. In the book, the ending is depressing. The film’s  ending is something more psychological and complicated – and plausibly honest. Certainly  no Breakfast Club-style fists thrust in the air, more of a tiny, one-finger salute to the universe. 

The film is quietly defiant, much like Renault. Merely refusing to cooperate might not be so  dramatically weighty, but it is more recognisable. People are often perfectly happy to leave  you alone while you remain agreeable. The moment you establish a boundary, you’re  suddenly awkward, negative or difficult. They demand an explanation. 

Well, “No” is a complete sentence.