Lane Myer

Lane Myer is the main protagonist in the 1985 comedy film Better Off Dead.

He is portrayed by John Cusack, who also played Hoops McCann in One Crazy Summer, Dimitri in Don Bluth's Anastasia, and Adam Yates in Hot Tub Time Machine.

Biography[]

Lane Myer is a teenager who lives in Greendale, in northern California and goes to Greendale High School. Lane Myer's two main interests are skiing and his girlfriend of six months, Beth Truss. Shortly before Christmas, Beth dumps Lane for the handsome and popular captain of the ski team, Roy Stalin. Roy is also an arrogant bully who unfairly rejects Lane at ski team tryouts. Beth also criticizes Lane's car, an old station wagon. Although Lane also owns a disabled 1967 Camaro, he has not been able to get it running.

Lane lives in a suburban development with his mother, Jenny, a ditzy housewife who routinely concocts creepy (and creeping) family meals; his genius little brother, Badger, who never speaks but at the age of "almost 8" can build powerful lasers and attract trashy women from “How-to” books; and his lawyer father, Al, who daily tries to stop the menacing paperboy, Johnny Gasparini, from damaging his garage with thrown newspapers. Furthermore, Johnny claims that the Myers owe him two dollars for newspapers, and persistently hounds Lane yelling "I want my two dollars!" Lane also regularly encounters two Korean drag racers, Yee Sook Ree and Chen Ree. Yee Sook Ree learned to speak English by listening to Howard Cosell.

Lane cannot get past Beth's rejection and decides that death is the only way out of his misery. He makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, which all comically fail. With the help of his best friend, Charles De Mar, (who in lieu of not being able to get "real drugs" in their small town, constantly inhales everyday substances like Jell-O, snow, and nitrous oxide in a whipped cream can) Lane tries to ski the K-12, the highest peak in town, in hopes of getting Beth back but wipes out. Lane is further embarrassed when he gets fired from his humiliating fast food job at Pig Burgers in front of Roy and Beth, who are there on a date. To top it all, he increasingly begins to suffer from neurotic hallucinations owing to the mounting frustrations in his life.

As Lane attempts to either end his life or win back his ex-girlfriend, he gradually gets to know a new girl: a French foreign-exchange student named Monique Junet, who has a crush on him. She is staying with Lane's overbearing neighbor Mrs. Smith, who continually tries to force Monique into being a girlfriend for her socially backward son Ricky. The pair are so annoying that she pretends she cannot speak English. Monique, a Dodgers fan, turns out to be an excellent auto mechanic and skier who helps Lane fix his Camaro and tries to build his confidence. When Roy insults Monique, Lane challenges him to a ski race down the K-12, with the winner to be captain of the ski team. Monique helps Lane prepare for the race, which he ultimately wins despite losing one ski and being pursued by Johnny. Beth rushes to embrace Lane at the finish line, but he rejects her and, after besting Ricky (who attempts to keep Lane from rescuing Monique from the restraints of his mother) in a ski-pole swordfight, drives off with Monique in his Camaro. Lane and Monique are last seen kissing at home plate at Dodgers Stadium, with Johnny bicycling towards them. Badger demolishes his house by launching a home-made.