Risky Business is a film that reminds us of the drive many young people carry and their naivety about the pitfalls that may lie ahead, but more than that, it reflects a newly emerging culture of money, sex, and power as the smoke and mirrors of the ’80s American dream took hold.
Released in 1983, Risky Business would break new ground in the teen sex-comedy genre while introducing the world to Tom Cruise. Directed by Paul Brickman, many assumed Risky Business would play with the classic comedic riffs of Porky’s (1981) or Private Lessons (1981); however, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High the year before, Brickman’s movie would offer a far more thought-provoking exploration of teenage dreams, reward, risk and consequence.
Set in the suburbs of Chicago, Risky Business introduced us to the Grade-A student Joel Goodsen and a capitalist world of risky ventures while his middle-class parents are away, involving a sex worker named Lana (the fabulous Rebecca De Mornay). However, while these ventures are transformative in personal, sexual, and financial ways, they also carry significant risks and more than a sting in the tail, as Joel is about to find out!
Risky Business is a film that reminds us of the drive many young people carry and their naivety about the pitfalls that may lie ahead, but more than that, it reflects a newly emerging culture of money, sex, and power as the smoke-and-mirrors of the ‘80s American dream took hold.
With train carriage sex, sex workers, midnight masturbation and a sexy dance in tight briefs that may well have inspired Barry Keoghan’s far more ‘free swinging’ Saltburn finale, it’s surprising Risky Business made it past the censors, especially given the fact that Joel was seventeen. But let’s face it, with that killer smile, who could have denied Cruise anything in his twenties!
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