John Hughes Week: Pretty in Pink

And then there was Pretty in Pink. This film marks the third and last collaboration between Writer/Producer John Hughes and star Molly Ringwald in a film directed by frequent Hughes collaborator Howard Deutch. 

Andie (played by Molly Ringwald) is a girl from the wrong side of tracks living with her out of work father (played by Harry Dean Stanton). Her best friend is Duckie (played by Jon Cryer), who carries a torch for her and she pretends not to notice because she doesn't feel the same way. She works at the local record store managed by Iona (played by Annie Potts), a woman going through some sort of identity crisis since she is rocking an entirely different look everytime we see her.

Andie catches the eye of Blaine (played by Andrew McCarthy), who hails from the affluent side of town. The two go out and seem to hot if off, despite the best efforts of Blaine's snobby, slimeball friend, Steff (played by James Spader). Steff doesn't want Blaine to date her because he knows Andie sees through him even if Blaine doesn't. Andie and Blaine try to make a go if it despite the friction they receive from Blaine's friends and from a very hurt Duckie, but can they make it work?

Pretty in Pink is one of the more serious efforts from John Hughes, creating real characters with real problems and the actors rise to the challenge. There is still humor in the film, but it's more grounded than some of Hughes' other films bringing it more in line with The Breakfast Club than Ferris Bueller or Sixteen Candles. Ringwald is fantastic as Andie, creating a fully fleshed out character who is much of the time more of an adult than her sad-sack father. Jon Cryer damn near steals the show as Duckie, one of the more colorful characters to populate a teen film and in lesser hands could have been annoying. His most famous scene is a dancing lip sync he does through the record store to Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" that remains an impressive, show stopping treat. Andrew McCarthy rounds out the trio as the charming, if somewhat insecure, Blaine. I also have to give special mention to Annie Potts as Iona, Andie's boss at the Record shop she works at. She provides much of the humor of the film and is a real original character. Every time we see her, she's trying out a new look until finally she finds the right one at the end. At the same time, she's a great friend to Andie offering advice when she can.

Over the years, this film has sparked some serious debate over who Andie should have chosen in the end. The film had two endings, one where Andie ended up with Duckie and one where she ended up with Blaine. There is an entire group of people who insist that she should have ended up with Duckie, as it was originally scripted while others concede she was better of with Blaine. I begrudgingly concede she was right to pick Blaine, but then again, I'm biased. I kinda was like Duckie in High School (although not as adventurous fashion-wise) and my best friend was a girl who even today I see a lot of in the character of Andie, maybe even more now than it was then, like some sort of bizarro self-fulfilling prophecy. I love her with all my heart, but it's a platonic sister I never had kind of love and that's what I see between Duckie and Andie. Duckie may just be too confused to see it at that point in time, but I think when it came down to it he would've figured it out in the end.    

Nonetheless, Pretty in Pink has a worthy place in the pantheon of Hughes films, anchored by fantastically drawn characters and great performances and is a film that continues to live on with it's many fans, who I count myself among (probably because I related to it so much). People continue to look back on it with a great deal of fondness even today, including Cryer himself, who this past fall dressed up as Duckie for Halloween on his sitcom, Two and a Half Men, to much meta infused laughs.