You know, it’s a little weird. I sort of feel like I’m embarking on a trip through time. You see, I’m writing this review in July, but I know that I won’t post it until October. I mean, I haven’t even announced my write-off yet! The point is, I’m sending these words far, far into the future (Okay, okay, three months.) to meet Ayn Rand only knows what fate.

In a way, watching Sixteen Candles is also a lot like embarking on a trip through time. But more on that later. Sixteen Candles is the story of Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald [The Stand, Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story]), a high school sophomore whose entire family has forgotten her sixteenth birthday. And that’s her extended family, too, since her grandparents are in town for her older sister’s wedding the next day, which is also the reason for the forgetfulness in the first place. The indignities mount when Samantha is forced to endure a school dance where she is subjected to the wanton advances of The Geek (Anthony Michael Hall [The Dead Zone (The series, not the movie.), Pirates of Silicon Valley]) while she watches Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling [Mermaids, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken]), the boy of her dreams, dance with his beautiful girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris [Gremlins 2, Home Alone 3]). Throw in muscle relaxants, underwear, a bohunk, a Rolls-Royce, and a weird Chinese guy, and it’s anyone’s guess where things will stand tomorrow!

Samantha is really quite a trooper, considering everything she has to go through in a thirty-six hour period. I mean, seriously, she manages to keep it 90% together in the face of every conceivable humiliation that can afflict a high-schooler in 1984. She keeps her dignity throughout the continuing absurdity and even manages to be considerate of others whenever possible. She’s very excited about her birthday, because she thinks that being sixteen will open the door into adulthood. Her behavior in the movie shows that she is indeed a mature young woman. Molly Ringwald really was sixteen years old when this movie was made, but she looks basically the same now. She does a really great job of expressing teenaged angst without surrendering to it. She is cute with her short, dark hair, but not as cute as she is two years later with slightly longer, redder hair in Pretty in Pink.

Jake Ryan is a popular, athletic senior who is breathtakingly handsome. He is very well-off financially, a star athlete, and well-liked by everyone. Although he has been going with Caroline for a while, he doesn’t seem to have much in common with her. In fact, he is clearly becoming bored with the relationship. Jake is looking for an intellectual connection with someone, and he also wants to be appreciated for who he is. When he discovers Samantha’s crush on him, he is intrigued because he senses that she is an intelligent person. I also suspect that he wants to bask in Samantha’s admiration of him Michael Schoeffling is absolutely gorgeous. He reminds me a little bit of Galen Gering, who plays Luis on Passions, my favorite soap opera next to Days of Our Lives. His performance was quite enjoyable, and I believed him as a guy who is trying to figure out what he wants, and knows that it’s definitely not what he has at the moment.

By the way, it’s not July anymore. I didn’t time-manage very well during the summer. Anyway, here we are at September.

The Geek is, well, a geek. There is some dispute over his actual name. He refers to himself as “Farmer Ted,” and one of his friends calls him Ted at another point. However, popular opinion seems to be that this is just a nickname of some sort. Contrary to this view, I think that Ted really is the poor guy’s name. The common appellation of “Geek” comes from a scene in which Samantha’s friend Randy addresses him as such. But I will call him Ted, because I feel bad for him. Anyway, Ted is basically just sexually frustrated. His hormones are telling him to go out and get some action, but he doesn’t have any of the requisite social skills. This is in fact a pretty common complaint among adolescents, particularly high school freshmen. Still, Ted is fundamentally a good person. He actively tries to help the protagonists, and is generally likeable despite his social ineptitude. Anthony Michael Hall is great in this role. He comes across as completely pitiful in his desperation, as well as admirably perseverant in the face of daunting obstacles. Incidentally, I think I might be the only person I know who would totally do him, as he appears in this movie. Whereas Molly Ringwald looks basically the same now as she did then, Anthony Michael Hall appears to have gone through puberty twice in the interim. Seriously, have you seen The Dead Zone on USA Network? He’s about six feet tall and well-built. Yum!

Caroline is basically an egocentric brat whose irresponsible mentality could never function outside of high school. She disrespectfully instigates a massive drunken party at Jake’s parents’ house, recognizes no accountability for any of her actions, and apparently considers her only value to be in the popularity of the men she dates. She’s just a vacuous pit of human uselessness that floats around without regard for anyone or anything else. Haviland Morris does well in this role, really convincing me of Caroline’s total vapidity. She is also very pretty. However, in the scene where we see her breasts and the side of her buttocks in the shower, she used a stunt double. From the way the shot was done, this was obvious, and I also noticed that “Body Double” was acknowledged in the credits. I doubt that this was done because Haviland Morris has a bad figure. Rather, I suspect that she was simply too modest. I respect and applaud her decision to not do a scene with which she was uncomfortable. And Kudos to John Hughes for letting her sit that one out.

You can’t imagine how poorly I manage time. It’s October now. The only things standing between me and the date of the write-off are mid-semester break (No classes: Woo-hoo!) and a review and a half to write.

There are also a plethora of peripheral characters. Samantha’s sister Ginny (Blanche Baker [The Handmaid’s Tale, Bum Rap]) is everything that Caroline is, only worse. Here we see the results of Caroline’s personality extended into the real world, and it’s not pretty. All four of Samantha’s grandparents are staying at the house for Ginny’s wedding, and they are an amusing bunch of characters. Samantha’s paternal grandparents have brought with them a Chinese exchange student named Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe [ER, Gung Ho]), whose polite behavior is a cover for his undisciplined private habits. Samantha’s best friend Randy is a spunky accent to the action. Ted has a pair of sidekicks, Bryce (John Cusack [Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity]) and Cliff (Darren Harris [He’s been in a limited number of other things, always playing a nerd of some sort.]), and there is also a girl wandering around in a neck brace (Joan Cusack [Toy Story 2, In & Out]).

Sixteen Candles is a very enjoyable movie. Overall, the tone is quite quirky, but it is well-matched to the subject matter. The situations are definitely exaggerated, but they still ring true in some strange way. There are nerds who are desperate to “score” with “chicks.” Grandparents who dote in the most embarrassing possible way. Disrespectful younger siblings. And bohunks, bohunks, bohunks. I should probably point out at this point that “bohunk” is actually an offensive term for a person of eastern-central Europe. It is used repeatedly in the movie, but really shouldn’t be used conversationally. Unless, course, you want to let everyone know that you’re prejudiced against those of Romanian, Hungarian, and Czech descent.

The movie has a very interesting progression, sort of like a series of vignettes. It starts with Samantha at home, briefly, where everyone forgets her birthday. Then she goes to school and we get some pretty good exposition on a bunch of characters. Upon her return home, more people forget her birthday. The school dance and Jake’s party are where most of the action occurs. Then we are privileged to attend Ginny’s wedding, which presents the resolution. This is a slightly unusual format for a movie, but it definitely works here. Basically, we learn more about each character by seeing how they behave in different situations and when interacting with different people.

Though still enjoyable in 2002, Sixteen Candles is somewhat dated. In fact, the second scene of the movie is a montage (set to some pretty good music) of 㣴s fashion and fads, as modeled by an entire high school full of teenagers. Samantha uses the word “bod” several times to refer to breastular development, whereas I’m fairly certain that we no longer use this expression in this way. And if that weren’t bad enough, Samantha has a Culture Club poster in her bedroom.

The music in this movie is pretty decent. Many songs are played during the scenes at the school dance, and some are accompanied by dancing. Ted dances with reckless (and rhythmless) abandon to a high-energy song while he clumsily accosts Samantha. And they play that slow song, you know, the one that goes, “Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah (I know this...much is...true).” Yeah, you’d know it if I could actually sing it aloud for you. During it, Jake looks at Samantha while he dances with Caroline. Plus there’s this slightly quirky song called “Little Bitch,” by The Specials. It’s fun to listen to, and while it plays we see the scoliosis brace girl dancing with a heavyset young woman. This second woman has an odd look on her face while she dances forwards and backwards with a slight “twist-and-shout” thing going on with her arms. It looks like a strange cross between listening sympathetically and passing particularly pleasant gas. The closing song for the movie, during the last two scenes, is the Thompson Twins’ “If You Were Here,” which I quite enjoyed but have never heard elsewhere, unlike the still-much-played “If You Leave” by OMD and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds, which closed Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club, respectively.

In addition to the music, the soundtrack is punctuated by humorous sound bytes. There’s a punctuating boing when we see Caroline’s breasts, and a gong when we meet Dong. The well-known Theme from Peter Gunn (You know: dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun...) plays when we see a line-up of nerds at the dance. The ruinous aftermath of a house party is accompanied by the pathetic sound of an audio cassette unspooling.

Wardrobe. I really wish I could comment on the wardrobe. But I didn’t bring my tape of Sixteen Candles with me to Pittsburgh, and the copy from the video store completely messed up the heads on my VCR when I watched it last month. So I can’t go back and look at what they’re wearing. About all I can say is that Caroline’s pink party dress looks like a poofy princess doll’s getup, and Ginny’s wedding dress looked lovely. Well, I think I’ll edit this while I’m home during Thanksgiving and can provide some valid input.

The closed captions on this video are amazing! Well, on the newer version I had at home, at least. The old one from the video store didn’t have closed captions at all. But the new one had possibly the best I’ve ever seen. Lyrics from songs on the soundtrack are faithfully transcribed into the captions. Short instrumental pieces are identified by name. Character speeches are reported with nearly 100% accuracy. The most impressive show of captioning is definitely when the bus pulls up to Randy’s house. I’ll tell you about it when I’m at home and can actually refer to it.

There are some noteworthy gaffes in the film. When the Baker family piles into their two cars as they leave for the church, they make a final switch of passengers before heading out. At this point, Grandma doesn’t actually enter the car. She just crouches down next to it, which can be seen when the car starts to pull away but Grandma remains stationary. When the camera angle changes to show the car pulling out of the driveway, she is magically inside the car. Also, I don’t want to give away a spoiler here, but when a certain two people are making out, one of them sees something important and says as much. But it seems impossible for either of them to be making the statement, lips locked as they are. It almost seems as though the spoken words are being whispered from offstage. Also, the scene were Ted and Caroline wake up together is very strange. Ted seems groggy and confused, much as Caroline does, except that Caroline has been drinking while Ted has not. There is no reason for Ted to be unable to recall the events of the previous night. This sense makes not. But these issues are minor, and not a significant detraction from one’s enjoyment of the movie.

Sixteen Candles is an enjoyable movie, but definitely more of a “romp” than anything of substance. That’s not at all a problem, though. The tone and plot are in complete accordance with one another, resulting in excellent Feng Shui. The performances are ebulliently frolicksome, while the characters are intentionally exaggerated and the dialogue tends towards the goofy. But it’s all in good fun and well worth the time it takes to watch it.

Secret Subplot (For a complete explanation of Secret Subplots, please see my profile page)
Bryce and Cliff are homosexuals. Just like Duckie in Pretty in Pink, they are clearly overcompensating by evincing an obsession with the female of the species. But their jig is up when Ted finds them after the party, sleeping together in the same room. As Ted moves away from the bedroom window, we continue to hear their conversation. It’s loaded with subtext all about closets.

QF1 (For a complete explanation of QF, please see my profile page.)
Samantha tells Ted that he is a “total fag.” This is odd, because she calls him this when he is hitting on her in a very heterosexual (if sad and pathetic) way. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again before I finish this trio of reviews: America was evidently still hashing out the definition of this word during the eighties.

This has been the first of my three entries in my own write-off, D2K-93: The Widowmaker, in celebration of my two-year anniversary at Epinions. This is a write-off based on the “Brat Pack” actors of the 1980s, so I have decided to review the three best-known movies that star Molly Ringwald, my personal favorite Brat Pack performer. The other write-off participants are:

anderclayton * DavidK93 * dedemw * kurt_messick * LukePicard * MrsNormanMaine * Officer * pmills1210 * pogomom * sampo24 * st3on1ey1baby

However, as of 10pm on posting day, October 19, 2002, only pmills1210 has actually posted hers. Those others better shape up, or Pat automatically becomes my favorite Epinionator (as if she weren’t already)!


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS