One of the string of wonderful high-school movies from the Eighties which started maybe with writer/director Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and ended with Heathers (1989), Crowe's effort here (1989) is not quite up to the classic standard of those two movies but remains worth watching. John Cusack—still cast at this point as a generic high-school student—gives us his John Cusack character, and his John Cusack character is usually quirky and interesting and human enough to make the experience very enjoyable indeed.
A romantic comedy investigating the possibilities of love conquering class distinction, the twist here is to investigate the natural conflict between girl-father and girl-boyfriend ties. In 1980's Seattle, that entails an overachieving but isolated and lonely girl's love for her divorced and controlling and vicariously ambitious father, versus her newfound love for mediocre non-achieving but dedicated and sincere boyfriend Cusack, who is assisted at a critical moment by Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes".
Google Lloyd Dobler.
ReplyDeleteThe triumvirate: John Cusack as Lloyd (Say Anything), Sean Penn as Spicoli (Fast Times At Ridgemont High) and Tom Cruise as Joel (Risky Business).
My favorite of the type (unless you wanna include the one in which Marty McFly drives a DeLorean for the first time) is the one in which Bob Seger assists in a decidedly non-critical moment.
Today's music ain't got the same soul.
I like that old time rock 'n' roll.