Try A Little Tenderness: Pretty in Pink Turns 40
While John Hughes’ movies often portrayed a heightened reality, Pretty in Pink plays more like “reel life” than real life.
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Wes Platt
Southpoint Access
Wes Platt
If you were a teenager in the ‘80s, the voice of your generation was in his thirties. John Hughes made films that spoke to youth in a way few movies have before or since. Being a teen that plunked down my hard-earned burger-flipping money to see The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in theaters, I believed that Mr. Hughes was speaking for my kind. He was telling stories about contemporary suburban youth.
His characters weren’t caricatures or played by twenty-somethings. They looked like peers. And the themes were relatable, focusing on unrequited love, school dances, peer pressure, playing hooky, and other teen hallmarks. We saw ourselves in these characters. At the time, I remember thinking that John Hughes had the magic touch. He was blessed with remarkable empathy, an eye for casting, and an ear for awesome soundtracks.
His movies became shorthand for our experiences. In high school, I had a Contemporary Lit class where our teacher would have us sit on the floor once a week and share whatever was on our minds. We started referring to this time as our “Breakfast Club Talks”. During those moments, we discovered we were more alike than we thought as the cliques melted away. It felt like Hughes was the chronicler of my coming of age.
In reality, he was just a filmmaker on a hot streak. His alchemy was even starting to dissipate by 1986 when he released both Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Now, one of those movies still vibrates today with wicked charm, and the other one stars Molly Ringwald.
Ferris Bueller plays like a screwball comedy, an aspirational fantasy for teenage truants. Pretty in Pink is heavy-handed and melodramatic. It gets weighed down by its own intentions.
Wes Platt
Molly Ringwald (John Hughes’ muse from Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club) played Andie, a fashion-forward nonconformist from the wrong side of the tracks. The opening moments of this movie literally reveal that her house is situated near the railroad tracks separating one income bracket from another. She lives with her father, Jack, played by the gruff Harry Dean Stanton.
He’s still reeling from his wife leaving them. Mostly, he's just a "sad dad" trope. Stanton is a great character actor wasted in a thankless role in this teeny bopper movie.
The themes in this flick aren’t subtle. Oh, I should mention, Andie goes to high school in an upper middle class neighborhood and is bullied by some snotty rich girls.
This tension manifests itself every now and then with Andie speechifying to her teachers and classmates. Things then get interesting when sparks fly between her and Blane, a doe-eyed preppy kid played by Andrew McCarthy (of St. Elmo’s Fire and Mannequin fame). Does Andie follow her heart or stick with her clique? Both kids face pressure from their friends, who all view this budding romance as an act of defiance.
Andie’s best friend, Duckie (superbly played by Jon Cryer from TV’s Two and a Half Men), especially has a hard time with her budding romance. Duckie harbors a not-so-secret crush for his gal pal and shares his displeasure with the iconic line: “His name is Blane? That’s not a name! It’s a major appliance!” Cryer is the enduring star of this movie.
He pulls focus despite being swaddled in some truly precious accessories (e.g., thrift-store jackets, John Lennon glasses, and some natty porkpie hats). His lip-synching to Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” to get Andie’s attention while she toils away at the local record store is this flick’s lone standout scene. Duckie and Iona, Andie’s hipster boss (played by Annie Potts of TV’s Young Sheldon), are truly the only joyful characters in this whole overwrought modern fable.
Andie and Blane flirt and pine like they’re in a toothless version of Romeo & Juliet. This movie replaces dueling houses of Verona with warring high school cliques. It substitutes hurt feelings for tragedy. Andie and Blane are driven apart by class differences and the casual cruelty of his insufferable pals, Steff and Benny (James Spader from Sex, Lies & Videotape (and MANNEQUIN!) and Kate Vernon from SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica reboot).
While we’re on the subject, has there ever been a more righteous movie asshole than James Spader? From this flick to Less Than Zero to Avengers: Age of Ultron, no one does snide quite like him.
Despite Steff’s sly malevolence, Andie and Blane’s love still triumphs in the end. Following a tearful breakup, they are reunited at the senior prom.
While John Hughes’ movies often portrayed a heightened reality, Pretty in Pink plays more like “reel life” than real life. It features an idealized teen universe full of snappy comebacks and quirky fashion. Andie rises above heartbreak to appear victorious in a dress that can be best described as couture designed by Little Debbie. Blane steps forward to embrace her in front of his disapproving snobby friends.
A lot of people quibble at this finale, which was hastily put together after test audiences balked at Andie walking off with Duckie in the original ending. It’s this rejiggered finale, plus the movie’s emphasis on style over substance, that makes me think that Pretty in Pink is more interested in selling a vibe than telling a story. Is this because Hughes didn’t direct this one himself? Even with its faults, this movie still gives me a nice nostalgia buzz.
Pretty in Pink still takes me back to those days when stuff like Molly Ringwald choosing Andrew McCarthy over Jon Cryer mattered. The memories are precious even if this flick feels more like a commodity than, say, The Breakfast Club. I enjoyed watching it again recently to celebrate it turning 40. Those of us who hit puberty between 1983 and 1988 will always have a soft spot for John Hughes. Watching his films feels as comforting as looking through old yearbooks.
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