Duckie Pretty in Pink 20s Fashion
Aqueduct surfing by this title the other night took me back to 1986, when John Hughes was just finishing upwards an epic run every bit "Motion-picture show Voice of American Teenagers" and Molly Ringwald took her curtain call every bit The Daughter in that "Sixteen Candles," "Breakfast Guild" and "Pretty in Pink" trilogy.
I follow a lot of "Pretty in Pink" principals on Twitter, and they're always reposting some flattering remembrance of it from fans and influencers and people who are both (James Corden, of course).
Reviewing this back in the solar day (non my tertiary rodeo, kids), I think dragging two pals to the showing and wondering if they ruined it for me. I mean, they made quacking noises every time "Ducky" showed upwardly on screen, and truthfully, I call back they came just to grab the famously hip soundtrack Hughes' team ever compiled for him.
As the newspaper I wrote that review for flooded, and then burned (at the aforementioned time) and thus my clips and those years at the paper are lost to "The Red River of the North" mists of fourth dimension, I thought I'd try to see information technology with fresh eyes.
But I wonder if I'g about to get another batch of Twitter blocks. Considering within minutes, the hot pink mess "Pretty in Pinkish" is comes flooding dorsum.
Is information technology a picture where "The girl gets the wrong guy?" Information technology was a very different fourth dimension, but did Hughes not take the guts to make Ducky (Jon Cryer) gay? Or bi?
"This is an incredibly romantic moment, and yous're ruining it for me!"
Or was Hughes taking his shot at a sort of "Pride & Prejudice," where the manner conscious but poor heroine Andie (Ringwald) gets her caput turned scoping out the houses of the well&off like Elizabeth Bennett driving through the rich function of town in a battered Karmann Ghia?
"E'er consider going out with someone who has money?" she asks her school clique.
Dreamy rich Blane (Andrew McCarthy) has her eye. But Ducky — relentlessly — has her ear, sharing her fashion sense, stalking her to clubs he can't get into, lip-sinking to Otis Redding. He's like an Anthony Michael Hall from "Sixteen Candles" who's given up the macho shrimp shtick and is trying on "FAB-ulous!"
Blane's country guild comrade Steff (James Spader, his showtime plough equally "venomous) may take it in for the pretty in pinkish Andie (who rebuffs his advances). Just can those two kids from the literal contrary side of the tracks observe love anyway?
The teeth-grinding nature of "Pretty in Pinkish" goes back to Ducky, and not but because of his annoying, cloying, clinging omnipresence. The film reflects that character. It tries likewise difficult.
Hep cat cowpoke Harry Dean Stanton as Andie'south unemployed, depressed dad? Annie Potts every bit the record store manager who matches Andie'due south thrift-store fashion sense, and raises her crazy and crazier hair in every scene? That pink Karmann Ghia?
Information technology'southward all and then artificial and on-the-nose.
Hughes wrote from a very narrow perspective, something that became more and more than obvious the more movies he made. Suburban Chicago settings, upper middle class affluence, rarely if ever a Black face in sight. Gedde Watanabe'due south outlandish Asian stereotype turn in "Sixteen Candles" wasn't an blow.
Hughes ran out of things to say most teens with "Ferris Bueller'due south Day Off." "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" signaled a new, more than grownup direction that he never took.
He didn't rediscover his clout until he turned his attention to younger children such as the upper middle class Chicago suburbanite left "Home Alone" for the holidays. "Curly Sue" followed that, and threw in some seriously retrograde anti-feminist messaging to go with the whiter-than-whiter globe Hughes worked in.
As for "Pink," it lives on as an artifact, more of a time-capsule than the other Hughes teen comedies, and not just because of the standards of who and what were "hot" back and so. The decor of that tape shop, the Morrisey poster and conspicuous placement of The Smiths LP (and cassette) bin, are more idealized than our memories of the era.
But those fashions! It's non the colors that engagement information technology. Y'all see yoga pants that look like flattering versions of the bagwear all the immature women are trapped in underneath all that pilus product. The gaudy accessories that push button "more is more" style, the "relaxed" lines of the men's and women'south habiliment (Spader's "Miami Vice" without the torrid zone linen suits). Were nosotros ever that immature?
All that said, "Pink" lives on. Just is this a "cult film" that deserves to? I don't call up so.
MPA Rating: PG-thirteen, lots of profanity
Cast: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy, Annie Potts, James Spader and Harry Dean Stanton.
Credits: Directed by Howard Deutch, script by John Hughes. A Paramount release.
Running time: 1:37
0 Response to "Duckie Pretty in Pink 20s Fashion"
Post a Comment