Pretty in Pink

Pretty in Pink is good John Hughes, not grand John Hughes like the Breakfast Club. But good is...well, good. Part of the reason I like Hughes is he writes complicated teenagers. Complicated “villains”...not so much. James Spader delivers a one-note performance as the popular, rich jerk. But he does it so well, I can't really complain.

Molly Ringwald is so good in Hughes movies that I wonder how she fell so far off the map. She's no Meryl Streep, to be sure, but she always played her roles well in her Hughes films. My guess is her talent didn't mature enough to play adult roles. That and adults probably weren't willing to see her in “their” movies.

The adoring weird friend is a common character in Hughes' world, and Jon Cryer delivers a fine performance as Ducky.

I also liked Harry Dean Stanton as Ringwald's dad. The guy's a pro, never playing down to genre that usually didn't let the adult performers shine.

As a writer, Hughes always made a real effort to show how teenagers can be smart, complicated people who we can all relate to. He showed complexity in social classes that often gets glossed over for stereotypes. The guy was good. I miss him. The rumor was that he wrote Maid in Manhattan. If so, I cry. But the guy needs to jump back in and do the teenager thing. Because even if the 80s soundtracks and vocabulary of its main characters must be changed, the issues are still there. And teenage movies can be good again.

My major complaint: The end feels incredibly rushed. All the problems seem to fix themselves in one big whirlwind. The film had earned a better constructed ending.

***1/2