Thanksgiving is about family and turkey, and giving thanks when they're ironically combined into a turkey movie about family. One of my favorites, Poison Ivy, is like a cornucopia of crass. Cheap in titillation and sentiment, it speaks of what it takes to be a family, for better or much, much (much) worse.
Whether you already have a family that loves you or you're planning on seducing a new one, Poison Ivy reminds us ALL to give thanks for Cinemax-style softcore. Take this story of a Lolita-like Drew Barrymore seeking a family to embrace her. Mock her methods of matricide or making it with Tom Skerritt, but Ivy's devotion to starting a family is met with a gung-ho kind of grace. She befriends a lonely outcast named Sylvie (Sara Gilbert), whose father is experiencing a late-life crisis and whose mother is more likely to hug her oxygen tank than her own daughter. It begins tenderly as many friendships do, at the local tire swing. Soon it progresses to underage tattoos, bisexual taboos and doing the dirty with the downtrodden Dad while he's checking in on his unconscious wife. Thanksgiving is also about family dysfunction and turkey, and Poison Ivy will make almost anyone's family drama seem relatively low key.
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