Pretty in Pink (PG-13)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Max; Vudu; YouTube

Caution: potential spoilers.

This came out in 1986, but I didn't see it until 2022. It's something I've wanted to see for a long time, along with some other so-called "Brat Pack" movies. (The term "Brat Pack' is disliked by the actors it refers to, and while I sympathize, it's a term I've chosen to use because there are four movies I've always associated with the group that I have long wanted to see. And because I didn't get a chance to see them when they came out, in fact I'm not sure I was even aware of them until years after they came out. But I still feel like these movies are an important part of the 1980s, so I feel like I missed out on something important about the decade I most consider my "formative years".) There are several other "Brat Pack" movies I haven't seen and am not interested in seeing, and this is the last, chronologically, of the ones I did want to see. I would have watched them in order, but I just happened to pick this one up at a thrift shop in 2022. And it's not like the movies are related to each other, so it doesn't really matter what order I watch them in. It's actually not the first Brat Pack movie I've see; that would be "The Outsiders", which I watched sometime in the early to mid Aughts, but I didn't write a review of it and now I don't really remember anything about it. Besides which, I'm not sure whether or not I was aware that it was considered a Brat Pack movie at the time that I watched it. I should see it again someday, along with the other movies I haven't seen yet. Anyway, before I watched this I thought I was going to put my review under "coming-of-age", because Wikipedia had it in that category. But I didn't end up feeling like anyone actually came of age in any way during the movie, and Wikipedia also calls it a comedy-drama, so I'm putting my review under "serio-comedy". I'm afraid I didn't like it as much as I was hoping to, but it was okay. But it makes me worry about how much I'll end up liking any of the other Brat Pack movies. Maybe I should have had a bit less FOMO about them...

So, there's this high school senior named Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald), who lives with her divorced father, Jack (Harry Dean Stanton), who is only employed part time, and Andie wants him to find a full time job. She also hopes someone will ask her to the upcoming senior prom, and eventually, a guy named Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) does ask her out for a date, and later, to the prom. Andie likes him, but has mixed feelings about dating a rich guy, since they come from different worlds. In fact, Blaine seems to be the only rich kid in school who isn't a major jerk. His best friend Steff (James Spader, whom I completely failed to recognize) certainly is a jerk, and he tries to convince Blaine that Andie is beneath him. (This is ironic, because he himself had tried to hook up with her before, and was rejected.) It's also true of Steff's girlfriend, Benny, who is always mean to Andie and her friends. (I found it a bit interesting that several characters had names that are more commonly associated with the opposite gender, and I can't help wondering if that was intentional.) Meanwhile, Andie's best friend, Phil 'Duckie' Dale (Jon Cryer), secretly thinks he's in love with Andie, but is afraid to tell her. (I'm not sure whether or not he was right to believe he's in love with her, but at least he seemed pretty sure. You might want to check out the "Stalking for Love" episode of Pop Culture Detective.) So he becomes resentful of Blaine. I think we're meant to find Duckie both funny and kind of cool, but most of the time I just found him kind of annoying, and he sometimes acts like a jerk, himself, despite not being one of the rich kids. Andie is also friends with a woman she works with at a record store, named Iona (Annie Potts). I think that's all the characters I found worth mentioning, though there are a few other familiar names in the cast list.

Well, eventually Blaine decides not to go to the prom with Andie, because of pressure from Steff. Instead, he goes alone. Andie also goes alone, but outside the prom she meets up with Duckie, and goes with him. But that's not how the movie ends, luckily. I want to say, throughout the movie there was an ending I feared might happen, which I really didn't want to happen. And it started to look like it would, but it didn't. However, Wikipedia informs me that the ending I feared was the original ending, but it was changed because it tested poorly. So I'm happy about that. The ending that did happen I liked well enough, I guess. Anyway, I liked Andie and Iona; I thought Blaine was okay for the most part; I had mixed feelings about Duckie, but mostly didn't like him much; I definitely disliked Steff and Benny. The story itself I thought was just okay, and none of the emotional plot points grabbed me particularly hard. As I indicated before, I was somewhat disappointed by the movie, but I'm definitely glad to have finally seen it. And at least it shows classists as bad guys, which is good. And I'm not sure what else to say about the movie.

Oh yeah, I wanted to mention that at one point there's some instrumental music that reminded me of the short film More, so I looked it up and it turns out the same piece of music, Elegia, was used in both this movie and that short film. I think that's kind of cool.