Robyn Citizen, TIFF’s Senior Manager of Festival Programming, joins the program to discuss one of her obsessions: 1988's box office smash Cocktail.

Cocktail was adapted for the screen by Heywood Gould from his own novel, but the dark tale was significantly brightened when Disney refashioned the film as a Tom Cruise vehicle for Touchstone Pictures during their domination of the multiplex in the eighties. The film started the “flair bartender” craze and its soundtrack spawned two monster radio hits: “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. Cocktail was partly shot in Toronto. It was also the film Cruise was working on when he joined the Church of Scientology.

Taken as sunny mass entertainment in the eighties, Cocktail’s darker elements can be seen more clearly today: time has revealed its grim sexual politics and its troubling depiction of “success” in the Reagan era. It's a great example of how sometimes America unintentionally tells on itself through its movies. 

And since Robyn is from Texas, we had to talk about the other guy named Cruz.

Follow Robyn Citizen on Twitter.

A good profile of Heywood Gould and his experience working on Cocktail, by Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, March 21, 2013.