One of the lesser 80s teen classics. I’m sad to say that it’s not worthwhile. Part of the reason that I watched this was that Sparks shows up in the soundtrack, with Angst in My Pants and Eaten By The Monster of Love.
This is a romance, and to a lesser extent, a comedy. I think it barely qualifies as a comedy. There isn’t much that’s funny about it. Most of the humor seems to be “they talk different!” and “they dress funny!” But these don’t make a comedy. It can work, but it requires that the performances sell it.
While the cast is capable, most of them don’t stand out. Even Nicholas Cage doesn’t seem remarkable. The one person who caught my eye was Elizabeth Daily, who I mostly know from her appearance as Dottie in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Besides being cute, she had the most interesting story in the movie.
The funniest thing that the movie has to offer is at a party scene. I know that most of the time, actors just have to move around like they’re dancing to music, but usually nothing is being piped in for them to dance to. In this case, it looks more obvious that they’ve each chosen a movement, and they’re just repeating it.
The central conflict of the movie is shallow enough that it’s not believable. It’s supposed to have a Romeo & Juliet angle to it, but it just doesn’t work.
I occasionally thought about Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and how Cathy doesn’t view that as being an interesting movie. I wonder if this one would be more interesting if I grew up with it. As it is, I found it remarkably dull.
After reading some of the background for the movie, it’s much more interesting. The budget was really low - around 350K. The clothes are mostly what people had around. I can’t remember where I read it, but I know I heard that the script was written in about ten days. For a production put together under these terms, they did pretty well.
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