Cast

I watched Howard Deutch's Some Kind of Wonderful the other day. The film was written by the late John Hughes and was released in 1987. I'd seen it only once, on VHS when I was in grade 9. A friend of mine had put me onto it, and he was a mad fan of the movie, writing 'SKOW' on his school bag and so on.

The film is terrific and well worth another viewing, especially if you haven't seen it in a long time as I had. I noted some things about the movie which I thought I'd share here.

First of all, this film contains a number of examples of youth ritual and culture that it shares with other movies of the same genre and era. For example it contains the classic date. Eric Stolz' character, Keith, takes Lea Thompson's character Amanda out of a date. Two important parts of which are going out to an expensive restaurant, and doing something creative and unusual, in this case going into an art gallery at night. I didn't have dates at high school, I was far too shy. But I always thought that I should be having dates, and that when I did they should look something like Keith & Amanda's.

Another example of youth culture and ritual is the ubiquitous 'house party.' It seems in almost every movie about teenagers, the parents of one of the characters will conveniently whisk themselves away to another state, country or continent for the weekend, leaving the house vacant and ripe for a party. I never heard about any parties like this in my neighborhood when I was a high schooler, but thanks to the movies I thought I really ought to be going to house parties, or even hosting them myself, even thought they looked kind of boring to me. What do people do at these things? Just stand around talking? Is alcohol always involved? Do any Redroomers have any experience with house parties, and do they look anything like the movie version? Was I missing out on a valuable rite of passage?

In the film, substance is chosen over style, and true love is celebrated, as Keith, who spends most of the film being dimwitted to the love of his tomboy best friend Watts, finally chooses her over the wealthy princess, Amanda. 'Substance over style' is a purely educational theme. It can take a while for children to realise that looks can be deceiving and that the heart of a thing is far more important than its skin, and we have to teach it. 'True love' is more of a spiritual theme. This idea that everyone does have a soul mate, someone who is a perfect match is highly attractive and is a common theme of plenty of other movies. Narratively speaking, it's a good plot device. But in the real world, is it true?

Art, and by extension creativity, is celebrated as a beautiful, almost religious thing. "This is my church," Keith says of an art gallery at one point. Three of the characters are artistically inclined. Keith paints, Watts drums, and Duncan, the punk played by Elias Koteas, carves. His father is also a security guard at the art gallery. Before we find out about Duncan's artistic side, we loathe and fear him. He's an ogre. But he and Keith become firm friends when they realise they have something in common, and Duncan memorably pries off the desk top to show Keith his carving.

The 'art mob'; Keith, Duncan and Watts, team up and prevail against the 'anti-art mob', the wealthy clique of nasty snobs led by the loathesome Hardy Jenns. These people believe in satiating their whims, doing whatever they want, being unkind to people less well-off than they, not sticking by their friends when things get inconvenient, and they certainly don't create art. Amanda starts out as one of these unlikeable people, but transforms during the movie and becomes one of the 'art mob'. Her visit to the art gallery, the 'church' as Keith called it, is symbolic of the personal transformation she undergoes during the movie, her rebirth on the side of art, love, truth and beauty.

The character of Watts, played by Mary Stuart Masterson, is a tomboy drummer from a broken family. She worries about her appearance, though jokes it off when the subject arises. She has a tough exterior but is incredibly sensitive. Watching the movie, I realised that one of the successes of it is getting male viewers to identify with a female character. It has been said that female viewers have far less difficulty indentifying with a male lead character than vice-versa. But in this film we do. "Pretend I'm a girl," she even says at one point in the movie. Do female viewers identify well with Watts, too? With Amanda?

Despite what everone in the movie thinks, Watts is better-looking than Amanda. Mary Stuart Masterson is better looking than Lea Thompson, classically speaking, not beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder speaking. I wonder if this casting was a conscious choice or it just turned out that way, but I suspect the former. It's clever, but it works in the movie's favour very well. 

This is a movie that is meant for people of a certain age, but made by adults. It is interesting to see what they wanted to say to teenagers, and how they said it. But more importantly, it is also just a really good yarn.