Vision Quest

Vision Quest (released in the UK and Australia as Crazy for You) is a 1985 coming of age drama film starring Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, and Ronny Cox. It is based on Terry Davis' novel of the same name. Modine plays a Spokane high school wrestler who falls in love with an older woman, an aspiring artist from New Jersey on her way to San Francisco. The film includes an appearance by Madonna, her first in a major motion picture, playing a singer at a local bar, where she performs the songs "Crazy for You" and "Gambler". In some countries, the title of the film was changed to market on Madonna's emerging fame and the popularity of the song "Crazy for You".

The film was shot in Spokane, Washington, in the fall of 1983.

Plot

In this coming-of-age story, Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) is a high school wrestler who has just turned eighteen and decided that he needs to do something truly meaningful in his life. Against the wishes of those around him, he embarks on a mission to drop two weight classes in order to challenge the toughest opponent, Brian Shute (Frank Jasper), a menacing 3-time state champion from nearby rival Hoover High School, who has never been defeated in his high school career. In his zeal to drop from 190 pounds to 168 pounds, against the wishes of his coach (Charles Hallahan) and teammates, he disrupts the team around him and creates health problems of his own.

Vision Quest (novel)

Vision Quest is a young adult novel written by Terry Davis, first published in 1979. In first-person, present-tense narrative, it tells the story of a few months in the life of Louden Swain, a high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington who is cutting weight and working toward the state championships. The book takes its title from the vision quest ritual of some Native American Indian tribes, of going into the wilderness alone to 'discover who you are and who your people are and how you fit into the circle of birth and growth and death and rebirth.'John Irving called it "the truest novel about growing up since The Catcher in the Rye."

Vision Quest was made into a 1985 movie of the same title, starring Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino, with a cameo appearance from Madonna as a night-club singer.

The book has been published in many different editions, including re-releases in May 2002 (with a foreword by Chris Crutcher) and May 2005.

Awards and nominations