Pretty in Pink

[shipperx]

For whatever reason, I switched channels and watched the last half of Pretty in Pink.

Molly Ringwald's prom dress still is (and always was) hideous. And I'm still as confused as ever about how this movie was supposed to have a 'root-for' ending. Is it me or was Andrew McCarthy's character utterly spineless? I never believe that a guy "earns a girl," so I'm not saying that she should have turned to Ducky in the end. I just never understood the Molly Ringwald/Andrew McCarthy reunion at the end. So, he basically dumped her before the prom, ostracized her in school, Ducky shows up and escorts her... and Andrew McCarthy gets the girl... why, exactly? I'm reaching here. Was there any dramatic plot point that advanced that ending, because I just don't see it. Basically, he was just too spineless to stand up to a hot James Spader (and Spader was hot in a nasty, over-priveleged, what-an-asshole kind of way). Exactly how intimidating was stoned-out-of-his-mind Spader supposed to be? Hell, even a dork like Ducky beat Spader up in the movie! We're not talking oooh-so-scary here. Meanwhile, the best Andrew McCarthy could do was get weepy and manage one half-assed comeback that James Spader's Alan Shore could wipe the floor with without a second of thought... and most of his wits tied behind his back.

Truthfully, watching the movie, I wonder what Hughs was thinking when writing this one. The cues keep pointing to Ducky being the "one to choose" (and I don't say that because as a kid I gave a damn about either Ducky or Andrew McCarthy's character. I remember disliking Pretty in Pink when it came out.) But, just looking at it from a writing standpoint, even years later, I don't quite get the cues in this movie. They don't build up Andrew McCarthy's character. They actually build Ducky's unrequited love. Why? There was no reason to keep cutting to Ducky longing for Molly quite separate from Molly. McCarthy's character doesn't get that kind of build-up. McCarthy sort of just sulks away after Spader talks smack about her... leaving it to the school dork to 'defend her honor' as it were. Was it a test audience thing that determined the ending? Was it studio dictated with the love of BratPack creeping in? I seriously don't get it. From a writing point of view... well, McCarthy's character is basically Leah Thompson's character in Some Kind of Wonderful (A character who got dumped in the end). Heck, even if she didn't 'choose Ducky' (which, he was Ducky after all so I can see where she wasn't all up on that choice) a better ending would have been Molly's character telling McCarthy that he was several days late to the party and she didn't need or want him any more.

Anyway, I still don't get this movie after all these years. I will say, it has a great soundtrack though. That they got right. Plot-wise, meh. How did this become a quasi-classic anyway?

ETA: Googling you can find everything. Turns out that, yes indeed, in the original script and in the original way that the movie was shot, Molly's character did indeed 'Choose Duckie' and it was changed at the last minute. I'm happy to read this because (unsatisfactory ending and all) at least now the rest of the script makes sense because it was so setting up Duckie. I wasn't being hammered over the head with story anvils for nothing (even if they went with a different ending).

Comments

[kassto.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always found Andrew McCarthy's characters, and performances for that matter too, disappointing and weak. It was like we were SUPPOSED to like him but were never given any compelling reason to.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think I was that way about Brat Pack movies in general. I mean, I was totally that generation and I had friends who had huge crushes on Rob Lowe and... damn... the dark haired guy who was the rebellious, grungy kid in "Breakfast Club" (I can't remember his name at the moment). Anyway, I know that by generation and age group, I was supposed to have crushes on these guys, but I simply never did. They always left me cold (of course I had huge crushes on Pierce Brosnan and -- believe it or not -- Cary Grant (black and white version) at that time. Oh, and "Reese" in Terminator. I loved him.

I simply wasn't in sync with my age group. :)

[swsa.livejournal.com]

I actually liked the ending, because to me, Andie and Duckie were just as judgemental and assy towards Blaine as he was towards them. So in the end, they all learn a valuable lesson about tolerance. Heee. Okay, and I also have a scary love of Andrew McCarthy.

But seriously, I just hate Duckie. He's totally stalkerish and snitty and treats Andie like shit when she doesn't live up to his goddess expectations. In comparison, Blaine's cowardice didn't seem quite so bad to me. It's sad, but we've totally gotten into this debate on two separate occasions in my LJ.

Of course, now as an adult, I think she should've gone for Steff, who was quite obviously totally in love with her. *g*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh! Totally Steff! Can't you just picture the angsty backstory that could be created for Steff in fanfic... along with some teh hawt sex?

And I do remember our having had this conversation before. The thing is, I never really rooted for either Ducky or Blaine. My primary memory of seeing "Pretty in Pink" the first time was disliking it in a general way (and the fact that a bomb went off at the Embankment tube station and my sister totally freaked because I wasn't back from the theater and would have had to go through Embankment [explanation: my sister is about 12 years older than myself and had moved to London at that time. My parents had allowed me to fly over and visit her]. And I remembered reading the British review of the movie which seemed somewhat perplexed by the entire American High School thing and noted that kids in the movie thought Molly dressed strangely but the reviewer said that she just dressed 'British.' Oh, the odd things we we remember... and, I don't care, that prom dress was still hideous.)

Anyway, it's not that I was someone who liked John Cryer's character much. I thought he was a dork. And it's not that I disliked McCarthy. I rather liked his character in St. Elmo's fire. I just never quite 'got' the movie as a whole, but even on re-viewing it, I'm still dumbfounded by the plot. Watching it, all the dramatic cues (from Ducky beating up Steff to Ducky being the one to show up for her at the prom) bolster a through-line of Ducky as (albeit dorkified) romantic lead and Blaine as the dream-boy who gets dumped in the end. It's just the direction that the story tropes lead. There really isn't a strong dramatic build-up to Blaine's suddenly braving everyone to go to Molly, and really no build-up at all for why Molly should forgive him for what had gone before. It doesn't feel organic. If the script had been written to support this ending, surely we would have been given more insight into Blaine, and we quite simply weren't. Even from an airtime POV, Cryer, not McCarthy, was the second lead. It all makes so much more sense to me now that it was originally penned to end differently and changed in the editing process. (Trivia I discovered where googling -- McCarthy is wearing a wig in the final scene because he had chopped off all his hair for a different role and had been called back for a reshoot later so that they could change the ending. Second bit of trivia was that the role of Ducky had been penned -- and offered -- to Anthony Michael Hall... which seriously brought me to "What the hell?!" If Ducky was supposed to get the girl in the original draft, why in the frell cast Anthony Michael Hall? No offense. I mean, as an adult, he's turned out to be reasonably hot. But in 1986, he was a tiny, runt-like geek (He had his growth spurt later). I don't see how it could have ever sold as a pairing with that casting. It was just one more WTF.

Of course, with hindsight, you're right. It would have been so very much hotter with Steff and delving into why he had become such a self-destructive asshole and pothead. Plus, blond Spader = hot.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Despite having lived through the 80's and seeing most of the so-called "defining movies" of the period (which of course includes John Hughes and Molly Ringwald), I managed to miss Pretty In Pink. I caught one of the final scenes while flipping channels a couple weeks ago and saw James Spader and realized I HAD to finally watch this movie - for Spader, if nothing else - so it's sitting on my very long NetFlix cue. I may have to move it up.

Just to say I've finally seen it (that and Say Anything)...