The late John Hughes made a successful series of teen movies in the 80's, and "Pretty in Pink" was one of them. Unlike a number of the others, he didn't direct this one, but he still wrote it, and the starring role was assumed by Molly Ringwald, who appeared in more than one of Hughes' previous films. Having seen a bunch of other Hughes teen films and been overall impressed with each of them, and knowing that this one was fairly well-liked even if it's not the most popular of the bunch, I figured this would be a pretty good piece of its type. However, when I finally watched "Pretty in Pink" about 25 years after its theatrical release (it came out over half a year before I was born), I was disappointed to find that it wasn't even average in my book!
Andie Walsh is a working class high school senior who lives with her single father, Jack. Her mother abandoned the two of them several years ago, which is something Jack hasn't gotten over. Andie goes to a school where she is looked down on and mistreated by rich snobs, so her school life isn't easy. She is friends with a student named Phil "Duckie" Dale and an older woman named Iona, the manager at the record store where Andie works. Duckie has a crush on Andie, which means he wants to be more than friends with her, but his way of trying to show it annoys her, and she finds herself falling in love with another guy named Blane McDonough. Blane is one of the many wealthy students at her school, but is far more sensitive than the other ones she knows, and it turns out he is in love with her as well. The two of them begin dating, much to Duckie's dismay. Blane's rich, snobbish friends also don't approve of this relationship.
The beginning of this 1986 dramedy, showing Andie's life at home with her father, is far from an amazing start, but it shows that the movie could go somewhere. Moving to the character's school life, I would say it gets slightly more intriguing here, introducing the rich students who give Andie a hard time, and the impregnation offer and reaction that follows certainly made me laugh. However, the film gradually proves to be not so good. The romance can be memorably cheesy, with the first scene showing Andie falling in love with Blane, and then the computer lab scene. I was not too impressed with Andrew McCarthy's performance as Blane, nor was I with Annie Potts as Iona, but neither of them is as bad as Jon Cryer as Duckie. This character is clearly supposed to provide a lot of laughs, and he sometimes amused me doing things such as setting off the alarm at the record store, but his rants are generally not funny, and because of them, the character can sure be annoying! Watching Andie's troubles, including the rich snobs she faces, did not usually grab me, and the ending of the movie is a little abrupt.
I've seen "Sixteen Candles", "The Breakfast Club", "Weird Science", and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", all of which I've found to be good high school movies from the renowned John Hughes. For that reason, one might say I should like "Pretty in Pink" as well, but I don't! I found this romantic teen dramedy to be weak in more than one department, even if it has received far more praise than criticism in the past 25 years. It came out earlier the same year as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", and sure pales in comparison to that significantly more popular effort. Apparently, Anthony Michael Hall turned down roles in both of these 1986 films to avoid being typecast, and I certainly don't blame him for that, but the role he was offered in "Pretty in Pink" was Duckie. No offense to Jon Cryer, but Hall just might have been less annoying in this role, and the character could have been less of a problem. Most Hughes fans might like this movie, written by him and directed by Howard Deutch, but I can't imagine myself ever quite getting it.
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