My God I love this movie. I just saw it for the first time last night, and it was incredible. I’m trying to talk my parents into seeing it with me.
And the music was incredible too, with Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, and was even named after a Psychedelic Furs song!
I think someone involved was a Smiths fan too. In the record store you can clearly see a section of their albums, there’s a Smiths poster, and Duckie listens to a Smiths song in one scene.
The acting was good too, especially Andie’s dad.
Anyone else dig this movie?
Other sort of similar movies I like are The Breakfast Club, Donnie Darko, and The Lost Boys. I guess I kind of have a thing about 80’s teen movies (I was born in 1986, btw). It looks like I need to see Some Kind of Wonderful too. Any other similar movies?
My first reaction to your post was,“Where have You been?”
…but then I saw your birth date.
These Brat-pack movies (sans Donnie Darko, too new) have been pop-icon hits for many in my generation (the 80s H.S. group). You might try Sixteen Candles and a more mature Brat-pack in St. Elmo’s Fire or Less than Zero.
Sixteen Candles is my favorite, but I love Pretty in Pink as well as Some Kind of Wonderful, with an oh-so-youthful Eric Stolz, and Mary Stuart Masterson in full tomboy mode.
Then there’s The Breakfast Club. “It was a flare gun.”
And yeah, Duckie should have gotten the girl, but yeah, she didn’t deserve him.
Originally Duckie did get the girl. Audiences in test screenings didn’t like that so the ending was changed. The re-edit is pretty obvious once you know. Some Kind of Wonderful’s ending was John Hughes making up for this change.
I was kind of torn between Duckie getting Andie or not. I think either one can happen in real life, but him not getting her seems more real to me, precisely because he should have gotten her.
Or maybe I’m bitter.
I thought the characters were pretty well done too. Blane seemed to be the least fleshed out, but that’s not necessarily bad. There didn’t seem to be much of a reason for romance between Andie and Blane, but neither was there in Romeo and Juliet.
Pretty in Pink was to me just another entry in a long line of mid-80s movies following the live and hijinks of random annoying people roughly of my generation (give or take a year or two) in various Chicago suburbs. They were not considered defining films of our generation, but instead they were simply ‘chick flick’ date movies (was the term ‘chick flick’ even used in the 80s). One thing - as you noted they did have damn good soundtracks (Alas, we recently lost WLIR 92.7 out here, which played modern rock/new wave music when it first came out - and kept playing it (along with more modern genres) up to this year).
Really, Talon Karrde, I just wanted inform you (since I bet you weren’t paying attention then - being an embryo is no excuse!) that at the time, no real men wore pastel shirts, white sports jackets, and loafers, and expected to get away it (the guys in the brat-pack movies are aways wearing that crap) - we wore t-shirts and jeans like the real men we were (OK, so the few punkers I knew did wear purple and black - still no pastel shirts). And yes, I am including including the members of Duran Duran and Don Johnson…
But! There’s that quick scene where some random popular-, uninteresting-, normal-looking girl gives Duckie the “what’s up?” and he does the “who, me?” That has always seriously upset me beacuse even though Andie doesn’t deserve him, he’s way to cool for Anonymous Babe.
I hate that part!
I didn’t know that the original ending was with Andie and Duckie getting together. I probably would have liked that better immediately, but it wouldn’t have left the lasting impression.
What I always thought made Pretty in Pink especially disturbing was that throughout the movie we see what a sad, broken man Mr. Walsh is because his wife, the only woman he ever loved, rejected and abandoned him. And then we see Duckie get rejected by the only girl he ever cared about in favor of Richie Rich!
The only thing that prevents me from concluding that Duckie also ended up an unemployed alcoholic is speculating that he was, in fact, gay. I mean, he did dress like Elton John. So perhaps he eventually came out and managed to find happiness with some nice young man somewhere.
Oh yeah, and the pink dress Andie made at the end was really ugly.
What were the movies of your generation?
Speaking of chick flicks, I’ve got a rather embarrassing confession to make… I liked the movie A Walk to Remember and loved the book Pride and Prejudice. :o
Dinoboy, thanks for the link. I checked out the site, but sadly E! wanted me to register or something to see the whole thing. I don’t really want to do that right now.
Noclueboy, I must concur with your assessment of Ally Sheedy.
One more thing about Duckie not getting Andie. I think it’s likely that he just thought he was in love with her. That’s what happens when you’re good friends with a girl. It never works out.
And perhaps he had known that other girl before. I’m personally willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
In my little world, shortly after turning 18 Duckie has a torrid affair with Iona (Annie Potts) and they’re still together, keeping good music alive through the dismal years of bad hair rockers and boy bands. (And remember, this was filmed way back when, when the world was delusional and Elton John was straight and married. I mean, stranger things have happened.)