The classic John Hughes film Pretty in Pink is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month, and I got to see a revival of it on the big screen last week. It's not as good as The Breakfast Club, but the soundtrack just can't be denied. Anyway, some of my favorite tunes from that film:

"Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by the Smiths

As for my personal thoughts on the movie...it's weird, but I actually feel like I got more out of it when I re-watched it. I think the characters could have been much better written (Blaine and the school Mean Girl Benny were especially cardboard cut-outs), but I loved all the wonderful little nods to 1980's New Wave culture (which was going to fade out pretty soon after the mid-80's), and who can't help but root for Molly Ringwald's character? I feel like her character arc was about not staying complacent, either with letting the rich kids treat her like crap or with her father's refusal to move on with his life. It kind of felt like, at this point where she's almost at the finish line, there are things that Andie needs to confront about herself and the people around her before she can really move on to that next stage of her life. Now that 18/19 is pretty far behind me, I can appreciate that aspect of them movie more than I did when high school was a recent memory, I think.

I also think I appreciate Iona more...I'm closer to her age now than I am to Andie's age, and I got her speech about prom and the envy you can sometimes have of someone that age. I feel like I "got" that character more than I did when I watched this movie as a teenager or a little kid. (TBS used to run it pretty consistently.)

Of course, it's mainly about getting with the cute guy, but whatever. I do think it's funny that they basically had to reshoot the ending because nobody realized while they were filming the movie that Andie and Duckie had the chemistry of a brother and a sister, not a couple that doesn't realize they're a couple just yet. Apparently Molly had really, really wanted Robert Downey Jr. in the part of Duckie, and believed she could have had that chemistry with him, but just couldn't have mustered up that chemistry with Jon Cryer.
The movie was basically remade a year later with the genders flipped and called Some Kind of Wonderful. I honestly can't stand that movie, except that Eric Stoltz had hit peak attractiveness at that point and he and Mary Stuart Masterson had really wonderful chemistry together.

Anyway, did anyone else get a chance to catch the revival?