`WHATEVER' RICH IN TEEN TURMOIL.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Critic

If you hated high school and couldn't wait for your teen years to end, if you thought your parents (if you had parents at all) didn't understand or if you just wanted Mom and Dad to leave you alone, you might appreciate ``Whatever,'' a sad, touching look at a young girl facing the daunting task of becoming an adult.

Writer-director Susan Skoog makes her feature film debut with ``Whatever,'' and she certainly has a feel for the turmoil and conflicts that characterize the lives of many teen-agers. The film's title perfectly captures the mood of its characters - aimless teens trying to pretend that nothing really matters when, in truth, everything, down to the smallest detail, matters very much.

Young actress Liza Weil, also making her feature debut, gives an extraordinary performance as Anna, a tough, vulnerable 17-year-old high school senior looking for a way out of her dead-end New Jersey neighborhood. It's 1981, the dying embers of the era of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and Anna is torn between her rebellious instincts and her considerable talent as a painter. She dreams of attending a prestigious art school in New York City. She'd also like to lose her virginity, but like most kids her age, she's not quite sure how to go about it.

Anna certainly won't find much guidance from her divorced mother (Kathryn Rossetter), a broken, lonely woman who has trouble paying the bills and doesn't know what to make of her daughter's burgeoning womanhood. Instead, Anna seeks solace with her best friend Brenda (Chad Morgan), a wild child who has never said no to anything or anyone. It's Brenda we see in the film's first images, passed out and being date raped by a couple of guys in the woods.

As you probably can tell, this isn't the feel-good movie of the year, and ``Whatever'' often suffers from its perverse affinity for the morose and the difficult. Certainly ``Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' managed a more universal look at the travails of teen-age life, through the very same perspective of a young woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) trying to find her way and lose her virginity.

Both movies are set in the same year, although you sure wouldn't be able to tell from the music. In Jersey, everyone seems to be listening to the Ramones, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, while in ``Fast Times' '' Southern California digs, Jackson Browne and Led Zeppelin were the preferred choices. Again, it comes down to accessibility. ``Fast Times'' was a movie made for teens, while ``Whatever'' comes off more as a film for wizened adults (with critically acceptable tastes in music) wanting to remember their horrific formative years.

While the story line of ``Whatever,'' with its drugs, depression and late-night dates with petty thieves, may not resonate with everyone, it certainly paints its world with enough knowing detail to involve its audience emotionally. Skoog captures the searing loneliness and desperation of these young people looking to escape and the adults who tell them ``not to expect so much - it's easier that way.''

Weil is terrific as Anna, who finds herself with a woman's body, but still retaining the self-conscious awkwardness of a girl accustomed to disappointments and rejection. It's a vivid, fully realized performance, as is the turn by Morgan as Brenda, the hard-living friend who courts trouble as fast as she runs from it. Also on hand is Frederic Forrest, as Anna's high school art teacher, Mr. Chaminsky, the one adult in this sorry town who manages to help its young people.

That Mr. Chaminsky is around at all serves as the movie's acknowledgment that hope can exist, even in a place dominated by the emptiness of keg parties where teens drug themselves into feeling that everything is all right. A happy ending may not be around the corner, but even in Skoog's brutally tough emotional landscape, you grab any glimmer of optimism you can find.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Whatever'' (R; pervasive teen drug and alcohol use, language, sexuality, violence).

The stars: Liza Weil, Chad Morgan, Frederic Forrest.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Susan Skoog. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 52 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle Town Center, Encino; Laemmle Monica, Santa Monica; Central, Glendale; UA, Westwood.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Anna (Liza Weil) and her divorced mother (Kathryn Rossetter) provide limited comfort for one another in ``Whatever.''