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This movie struck a chord way back in the 1980s, when I was entering adolescence. I found something very familiar in this bittersweet story of a teenage girl whose world is turned upside down by her unrequited infatuation with the most popular hunk in school. She is faced with further shock when her family forgets her sixteenth birthday in the midst of an upcoming family wedding. Surrounding this basic premise are a series of quirky situations involving freshman geeks and a foreign exchange student that had me laughing back when I was twelve and are just as hilarious today. For many twenty-somethings, this film is a classic.
Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) is in love with the school’s most popular and bodacious hunk, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). However, Jake is joined at the hip to his gorgeous blonde girlfriend, Caroline (Haviland Morris). Samantha’s life is further complicated by her family’s failure to acknowledge her sixteenth birthday — and the affections of a freshman geek affectionately named Farmer Ted (Anthony Michael Hall). Throw in a foreign exchange student named Long Duck Dong (Gedde Watanabe) and memorable performances by the Cusack siblings, Justin Henry, and Paul Dooley, and the result is a wonderful blend of humor and compassion for the teenage soul. The ending is predictable, but the performances are engaging enough to capture the viewer’s attention throughout. Even today, I can still recite countless lines from memory, showing that this film is rooted in my brain as an all-time favorite.
