tulsa, 1966. the greasers are the kids from the wrong side of town. the socs are the rich kids with mustangs and contempt. ponyboy curtis is a greaser who reads novels and watches sunsets. his older brother darry works two jobs to keep the family together. their middle brother sodapop is the heart of the house. the three of them are all that is left after their parents died in a car crash.
one night at the drive-in, ponyboy and his friend johnny meet cherry valance, a soc girl who is not like the others. her boyfriend bob does not take kindly to it. later that night, bob and his friends jump ponyboy and johnny in a park. they try to drown ponyboy in a fountain. johnny, who was beaten badly by socs once before, pulls a switchblade and kills bob. the two boys run.
dallas winston, the toughest greaser and the most broken, gives them money and a gun and tells them to hide in an abandoned church in the country. they cut their hair, read gone with the wind, and wait. johnny, who has never had anyone, tells ponyboy that he finally understands the poem about nothing gold staying. dallas comes to get them, and they return to find the church on fire with children inside. ponyboy and johnny run in to save them. johnny does not make it out whole.
what happens after is a cascade of loss. johnny dies in the hospital. dally, who loved johnny more than anything, robs a store and forces the police to shoot him. ponyboy is cleared by a judge but he is not the same. he writes the story as an essay for his english teacher. the first line is the same as the novel’s: “when i stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, i had only two things on my mind: paul newman and a ride home.”
the outsiders is about class and violence and the fragile machinery of being young. every emotion is dialed to eleven because being a teenager is dialed to eleven. coppola’s direction is lush and melodramatic in the best way. the score by his father carmine is sweeping and sad. the cast is a time capsule of future stars giving raw, unpolished performances. there is no irony here, no distance. just kids trying to stay gold in a world that is determined to turn them to rust.
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