"Love is a bitch,Duck."
IfPretty in Pink taught me anything in 1986 it was that love was all those things,but it was also a reason to get out of bed in the morning – the hope of it,anyway. Nothing was going to happen at school,but there was always the commute:maybe I'd bump into my dream guy in the food court. We'd share donut holes and talk about the Smiths. At 15 I was so far from romantic love that I practically have a violin soundtrack to my memory stream. That was me on the train with the acne and ankle socks staking out porcelain-skinned private school boys,or shabby punks thumbingFear&Loathing in Las Vegas.
Teenage romantics have to get it where they can. One of my Year 10 texts wasWuthering Heights,but that was too sophisticated for me. I didn't really understand Cathy crying,"Nelly,I am Heathcliff";I was taking my cues from teen movies. Hollywood seemed to have moved on from the story-less breast-fests ofPorky's andAnimal House,and John Hughes was in ascendance.
Of all of Hughes'films,Pretty in Pink is closest to my heart. The New WaveRomeo and Juliet territory had been covered byValley Girl two years earlier,but while the latter relied on the gimmickry,Pretty in Pinkwas touched by social realism. Molly Ringwald plays Andie,from the wrong side of the tracks,who falls in love with wealthy Blane,(Andrew McCarthy). It's"zoid'meets"richie",but,as Blane says hopefully,"That doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't mean we can't try."Their union is opposed from both sides:Andy's best friend/stalker Duckie Dale (Jon Cryer) despairs,while Steff McKee (James Spader),alpha asshole and keeper of the social order,wears Blane down with well-aimed jabs:"If you've got a hard-on for trash,don't take care of it around us."
Even the adult characters were fleshed out and believable:Harry Dean Stanton as Andie's sweet-but-hopeless dad and Annie Potts as her kooky employer/mentor.Pretty in Pinkalso looked great. I consider the set dressers of bedrooms in'80s teen movies to be artisans – the walls of Andie's room were covered with photos and kimonos and junk jewellery,while Blane's sports only a lonely Edward Hopper print. All of this:the casting,the"look",the music,resulted in a world where teenage me would have happily lived.
Were the tropes there before John Hughes? Losers lusting beyond their station,mean girls,love triangles,hopeless parents,wild best friends,house parties,"lipstick-and-load"montages. Hughes recycled his best efforts:Matthew Broderick lip-syncing toDanke Schoen becomes Duckie Dale killingTry a Little Tenderness (choreographed by Kenny Ortega!) Molly Ringwald's heart-to-heart with her father inSixteen Candles feels key but byPretty in Pink,the advice is going the other way ("A kid isn't supposed to know more than her father.")