Pretty In Pink

by Jonathan Bernstein

  Finally, Diane, who’s petrified of flying, and Lloyd are on the plane to England, waiting for takeoff. “When you hear that smoking sign go ‘ding,’ you know everything’s going to be okay,” he tells her. “Nobody thought we’d do this. Nobody really thinks it’ll work,” she shudders. “You just described every great success story,” retorts Lloyd who, by this time, could pilot the plane with his confidence. As they begin their ascent, Diane and Lloyd fixate on the smoking sign which, after a long moment, goes ding. Then the screen goes black.

  If there was ever a film ahead of its time, it was Hudson Hawk, but right behind it was Say Anything. Wasn’t Lloyd Dobler a sweeter-natured precursor of the ragamuffins from the same region who would soon rail against corporate rock whores? Wasn’t his “bought, sold or processed” speech a manifesto of befuddled rejection predating the work-shy ethic of the yet-to-be-detected slacker species? Wasn’t Diane’s “I am really scared” address a blueprint for several million subsequent admissions? And wasn’t Corey, with her catalogue of heartsick defiance, an early incarnation of the alt-rock chick? Of course, as ahead of its time as the movie absolutely was in many ways, in its treatment of Jim Court, it was entirely of its era. In fact, it was more so. Other eighties teen movies punished errant parents by humbling them or smashing up their prize cars. Say Anything stuck its father in the joint. His stated crime was bilking the aged, but his implicit and far more heinous felonies were smothering his daughter with love and interfering in her romance with a cool dude. Definitely harsh.

  My only problem with the movie lies with the casting of its heroine. No disrespect to Ione Skye, but in the context of the film she’s supposed to be extraordinary, a character to whom two men of completely disparate natures willingly and without question choose to devote their lives. That’s a tall order for a mere mortal and Skye doesn’t quite rise to the challenge, rarely exuding qualities more exotic than niceness and concern. Is there anyone who could have done the part full justice? Let’s see, lovely, brilliant and gifted (uma, uma) … a brain trapped in the body of a game show hostess (Uma, Uma) … someone so special she’s celebrated on two continents (Uma, Uma). Nope, can’t think of anyone. I draw a further blank trying to think of anyone who could have embodied Lloyd Dobler as unforgettably as John Cusack. Lloyd’s character traits—cheerful, devoted, undirected, sensitive, kickboxing—could in the hands of another actor have curdled into a scary, overemoting stalker. Cusack makes him a one of a kind, a guy with a heart of gold, but a guy you don’t feel like punching. Trying to salve some of Jim Court’s heartache over his daughter’s letter full of pain, Lloyd says, “Just knowing a version like that exists, knowing that for a moment, she felt that and wrote ‘I still can’t help loving you,’ that’s got to be a good thing, right?” For all that the movie is supposed to be about an ordinary boy and a special girl, nobody who saw Say Anything had any doubt that it was the story of an extraordinary guy.

  * * *

  “She’s cool, he’s hot. She’s from the Valley, he’s not.” So read the tag line for Martha Coolidge’s Valley Girl (1983), an endearing attempt to humanize the much-derided, mallaholic, unintelligible denizens of the San Fernando Valley. Titular heroine Julie (Deborah Foreman who had a smile that was like standing too close to the sun) makes her social circle emit a collective “Oh m’gad!” when she dumps her bitchen but brain-free boyfriend Tommy (Michael Bowen) for surly punk Randy (Nicolas Cage), a slice of forbidden fruit from Sunset Boulevard. For a brief moment, it seems that their love will be strong enough to bridge the Great Divide between her PVC and his leather. Then the rest of the Vals close ranks, threatening to ostracize her if she’s not back with her own kind by the time of the prom. “Like, he’s got the bod, but his brains are, like, totally bad news,” moans Julie of Tommy. Nevertheless, she caves in to peer pressure, breaking the sensitive Randy’s heart. Gag me with a spoon. However, Randy makes a Pretty in Pink–style nick-of-time appearance at Julie’s prom. Then he unP.I.P–like decks Tommy, dragging Julie off if not into the sunset then onto Sunset Boulevard. This one dated so fast it was a period piece by the time it came out on video, but it still remains hilarious (the pencil-sharpener earrings, the glasses-on-ropes) and intermittently touching.

  * * *

  Often pegged as The Man Who Would Be Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer actually stepped into a pair of shoes vacated by Broderick when he starred in No Small Affair (1984). The movie was begun in 1981, with Broderick and Sally Field in the lead but shut down after 10 days filming due to exhaustion on the part of director Martin Ritt. When shooting resumed three years later (with Jerry Street Smart Schatzberg at the helm), the Crymeister was the Head Baby-face in Charge, radiating adorable innocence as Charles Cummings, a socially maladroit 16 year old who compensates for his failure at interacting with the world by throwing himself into photography. He comes across and becomes consumed by that most rarely glimpsed of items, a picture of Demi Moore fully clothed. He tracks her character, Laura Victor, to the bar where she sings and is set emotionally aflame by the searing soul power of her performance (or at least the performance of the singer to whose lyrics Demi moves her lips in sync). Stranded in dues-paying purgatory, Laura’s career is going nowhere. Charles, now a man with a mission, launches an insane one-man campaign to alert the world to Laura’s star potential. He places his photo of her on billboards, bus shelters, taxi cabs and lamp posts. Pretty soon, people are asking, “Who’s that girl?” On the strength of his enterprise, she gets a record deal and flies off to L.A. But before she goes, she pays back his devotion by gently deflowering him. Like his alter ego Broderick, Cryer’s cutie-pie looks were both his fortune and his fate, forever placing him under the Yellow Pages listing Nice Guys R Us. Of all the Mr. Congeniality roles in his past and in his future, he never was and never will be more appealing than he was in No Small Affair. He makes Demi Moore seem sort of likable and even pulls off a nightmare of a scene where his well-meaning brother buys him a hooker to ease his painful passage into manhood. Standing naked but clutching an oversize pillow, he stares mute and embarrassed at the ground before shyly asking the pro, “Can I have a hug?” Now, that’s cute …

  * * *

  “You may never know who I am but that hasn’t stopped you from giving me the greatest gift I’ve ever known.” Such is the substance of the love letter that causes all the trouble in Secret Admirer (1985), The sentiments expressed belong, in theory at least, to Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell), who is enraptured by the creamy blondness of airhead narcissist Deborah Anne Fimple (Kelly Preston). She doesn’t know he’s alive so he writes her a letter straight from his heart and persuades his long-suffering platonic pal Toni (Lori Loughlin) to act as go-between. Toni does what anyone in similar circumstances would do. She steams open the letter and is amused and dismayed by Michael’s inept syntax and clumsy attempts at sincerity. Gazing at a picture of him, she puts pen to paper and lets her own, long-suppressed, nonplatonic feelings flow onto the page. The touching note is a megaton success, working its way into Deborah’s heart. Even though Michael is a nothing and a nobody to her, the fact that he was capable of expressing himself in such exquisite terms gives his existence new meaning to her. “You’re a poet,” she says.

  Then the letter becomes the catalyst for confusion and disaster. First, Deborah’s hard-ass cop dad (Fred Ward) finds it and thinks his wife’s playing around, then Deborah’s teacher mom (Leigh Taylor-Young) finds it, looks up in the middle of class to meet the gaze of Michael’s dad (Cliff DeYoung) and blushingly figures him to be her secret admirer. Deborah’s dad becomes a raging cuckold, recruiting Michael’s mom (Dee Wallace Stone) to spy on their philandering partners. Meanwhile, Michael is finding the luscious Deborah to be far more appealing as a distant subject of worship than a flesh and blood soul mate. Her play-by-play recaps of her shopping day leave him mute, nodding and disillusioned. In bed the situation is worse. “What do you want me to do?” he asks. “Do it right!” she snaps.

  The Ryan and F
imple marriages, on the verge of extinction, are saved at the last minute when a furious Michael snatches the letter from his arguing parents, yelling at them to leave his things alone. Deborah goes to see Michael, bearing copies of the letters she received, unable to believe the poet who penned such pearls could have turned out to be so callow and cruel. Michael stares at the unfamiliar writing. Then he realizes: his overlooked platonic pal Toni was the author. And he loves her! But it’s too late. She’s taking off for a year on a floating school. He tracks her to the harbor, bawling “I love you” at the top of his lungs and diving into the water to follow her. She throws caution to the wind, hurls herself off the boat and meets him halfway for a big kiss-up in the brine.

  Secret Admirer is thinner than the paper on which the love letter is scribbled, but it’s an engaging piece of piffle. The two femme leads are zesty comediennes—Lori Loughlin, particularly, plays a far pluckier best pal than a lunkhead like Michael deserves. C. Thomas Howell brings his usual brand of magic to the proceedings, i.e., he manages to stand upright and doesn’t spit food at any of the other actors when he delivers his dialogue.

  * * *

  It’s Saturday night. All across the country, carefree kids are drinking, dancing and engaging in acts of debauchery. Everyone’s having the best night of their lives. All except Ronald Miller and his company of geeks. At least that’s what Ronald (Patrick Dempsey) thinks at the start of Can’t Buy Me Love (1987) as he spends another weekend playing cards with a bunch of misfits blinking behind bottle glasses, buck teeth and braces. This is the geek’s dilemma: these are my friends, I’m one of them, but the alternative is despised solitude. Taking the $1000 he painstakingly saved after a million mornings mowing suburban lawns, Ronald goes to the mall to splurge on the telescope of his dreams. He’s just about to hand over the cash, when he sees Cyndi Mancini (Amanda Peterson), a petite blonde who is the focus of much awed popularity. Ronald claps eyes on Cyndi at the exact time she is undergoing an experience completely alien to her: a crisis. She’s stained her mother’s murderously expensive white suede ensemble and the cleaning bill is too steep for her. She crumples in despair. Ronald does what any of us would do. He steps in with his $1000, offering to pay for the cleaning if she will pose as his girlfriend for a month. She is appalled, but rather than attempt to convince her mother that the notorious White Suede Bandit had struck again, she accedes to Ronald’s ridiculous request, stipulating that their contract is only valid during school hours and excludes any physical contact.

  Being seen in her exalted company (and dudded up in New Wave threads, Ray-Bans and a moussed ’do) gives him acceptance by association. The hulking jocks who previously tossed him and his craven kind into lockers and threw shit at their houses now tolerate him as an amusing distraction. Cyndi’s girlfriends, all of whom look like Hustler centerfolds (a wry comment, I’d like to think, on how the popular crowd must seem to a dweeb like Ronald, but probably just a bad casting call), are quick to convey their availability to him. He’s a hip and happening guy; he’s gone, as a stunned spectator comments, “from zero to hero.” He’s also increased his standing in Cyndi’s eyes. Where once she viewed him with contempt as a geek pimp, now she basks in his admiration, empathy and openness. Lonely now that her football-star boyfriend has gone to college, she finds Ronald’s company preferable to the sluts and sportos that make up her much-envied cool clique. She even feels free enough to show him the book of poems she scrawls in secret. On the last day of their contract, Ronald takes Cyndi to his Special Place, a resting ground for vintage airplanes. They’ve both shared secret parts of themselves with the other and what started as a sordid business deal has now become something much more real. “You’ll have to help me here, I don’t really know too much about this. How do we do this?” says Ronald. Cyndi, charmed by his open vulnerability and nervousness about the relationship into which they’re about to enter, starts to say “We just take it slowly.” Not listening, he goes on, “I’ve never broken up with anyone before.” Awwww. Unbelievably, the sucker’s yearning for popularity runs so deep he is oblivious to Cyndi’s feelings for him. Next day they stage a loud public breakup and Ronald Miller is now hip, happening and, most important, unencumbered, free to run with the big dogs and jump on Cyndi’s bitch buddies. Life is sweet.

  At this stage, Can’t Buy Me Love could go in one of two directions. It could either develop into a “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it” scenario or it could point the finger of impending retribution at Ronald Miller. The latter route is quickly chosen. The first indication of his impending shame comes when the jocks persuade him to take part in a shit-throwing raid on what turns out to be the house of Kenny (Courtney Gains), one of his former geek friends. When the two exbuds come face to face, Ronald gets a stricken glimpse of what he’s become. Everybody else gets the same glimpse at a New Year’s Eve party. Cyndi’s football-hero boyfriend gets wind of her affair with this insect Miller. He gives her a hard time. She gets drunk and reveals to a houseful of the hot and happening that Ronald is a traitor in their midst. He paid her to make him popular, and like fools, they admitted him to their inner circle. Within seconds, jocks who had drunk beer with him and babes who had blown him unite in consigning Ronald to instant oblivion. As he stumbles home, the enormity of his fate is brought home to him as he passes a house where a bunch of his former geek friends are happily toasting the New Year. A stranger to both camps, stateless and unwanted, Ronald realizes despised solitude has, in fact, become his destiny and quite rightly bursts into tears.

  He makes many painful and humiliating attempts to rekindle the relationship he had with Cyndi, but to no avail. His old friend Kenny is scarcely more welcoming. “You threw shit at my house,” he yells when Ronald tries to engage him in conversation. But when one of the jocks gives Kenny some schoolyard hassle, Ronald comes into his own. He places himself firmly between geek and aggressor and delivers a stirring “What happened to us?” speech, reminding the jock how they all used to play together as kids before they became consumed by the notion of identity. His words strike a universal chord and he is accepted back into the geek fold. As for Cyndi, she’s not sure they can ever be friends again, but just at the last moment, just when she’s about to hit the mall with her hip friends and he’s consigned to another million mornings mowing suburban lawns till he can afford the telescope of his dreams, she leaves the girls behind, jumps on the back of his mower and—yes!—they mow off into the sunset.

  You’d have to be a fucking idiot to find anything remotely profound in Can’t Buy Me Love and luckily, I am. With almost every conceivable thing going against it—its unsavory premise (however dorky Ronald is, he’s still making another human being his paid companion), its questionable performances (Patrick Dempsey had a marked propensity to act like he was in a musical) and the fact that half the budget went to securing the rights to The Beatles’ title tune—the film touches on some truths about the iniquities of the schoolyard caste system and the desperation growing inside some of the dispossessed. Something about the film always catches me unawares and has me welling up. Maybe it’s because I always thought that the Molly Ringwald character should have ended up with Anthony Michael Hall rather than Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club, and in this movie, she does.

  5

  Brats Out of Hell

  The Rapid Rise and Long, Slow Fall of the Brat Pack

  If the librarian at Lone Star Junior High in Fresno had any notion of the ultimate consequences of her actions, perhaps she might not have been so enthusiastic in her petitioning of Francis Ford Coppola. However, her missive so powerfully conveyed the deep affection that the students at her school felt for S. E. Hinton’s novel of midsixties teen alienation, The Outsiders, and was so rigid in its conviction that he was the only auteur visionary enough to bring the book to filmic life, that Coppola was inspired to take on the task.

  None of which is intended for a second to suggest that his subsequent movie of The Outsiders (198
3)—which bears a dedication to Lone Star Junior High—was anything less than a completely involving wallow in wounded innocence. It totally captures the “us against them” fervor that 16-year-old Susie Hinton poured into her story, putting even the most boorish viewer firmly on the side of its assembly of trembling-lipped angelic underdogs. Ravishing to look at, its Cinemascope framing and super-saturated close-ups render the cast iconic and gorgeous. What might have given the Lone Star librarian a moment’s pause, though, is the realization that she was, in effect, laying the foundations for a platform that would introduce an entire stud farm of fresh young acting talent into the national consciousness. Many of The Outsiders’ ensemble had debuted in earlier movies or TV shows, but their collective participation in a movie so drenched with emotion and a sense of separatism (there are no adult characters and only one female, Diane Lane, of any importance) meant that they were suddenly perceived as a fully formed new generation of stars, fluent in the argot and the angst of the new generation of cinemagoers. Separately and in factions, these leaders of the new school enjoyed a speedy trajectory through soundstages, bedroom walls, nightclub back rooms and tabloid front pages. Some of them approximated the shambling humility and unformed aspirations of the gauche guy or gal next door. Others played at being reckless rule breakers, thrusting young heartthrobs whose leather biker boots shone with the slavishly applied saliva of prostrated studio heads. The fact that some of the actors who appeared in teen ensemble movies would carouse offscreen in the same groupings led to the coining and exhaustive utilization of a term that evoked shudders and nausea in both those to whom the moniker applied and the others for whom it was inappropriate.