Say Anything (1989)

 Another oversight on the Fox collection, and this one, I think, is an egregious one.

Say Anything came out in the spring of 1989, just as I was limping in the final stretch of my freshman year at college. It was a rough year (more on some other time), and the warm weather after a frigid, often lonely, winter meat hat there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Seeing Say Anything was a much-needed bright spot during a time of stress, depression and uncertainty.

The film is essentially the classic “ordinary” boy hoping to go out with the most popular girl in school formula, you know, the premise that carried a good portion of all those teen-sex comedies of the 80s (I was always partial to Can’t Buy Me Love).But Anything is not only a cut above all of those movies, but it may very well go down in history as the first, great modern teenage love drama, if it hasn’t done so already.

Yeah, I’m making that call. It’s that good. Writer/director Cameron Crowe burst onto the scene with this one, after having penned several screenplays for others, and he knows the territory. Of course, he got a strong assist from John Hughes, who primed the pump with his own genre-defining works – films about highschoolers hat showed us how they really talked, and what they really felt, and what they really did when the grown ups weren’t around. And – surprise – it’s actually, for the most part, not that far removed from the way we adults talk. And it’s even entertaining to boot.

But Crowe forged his own path. While Hughes films were, for the most part, comedies (his most dramatic work, The Breakfast Club, was really just a comedy with a few sprinklings of sobriety), Cameron focused more on the dramatic aspects of adolescence, and adolescent relationships in particular. He is keenly observant of the details of, for example, breaking up – in Say Anything, we see the girl, Diane Court, breaking down in her parked car, sobbing with visible grief, while the boy, Lloyd Dobler, tears up subtlety, stoically, as he drives away.  And throughout the rest of he film, we get little moments like these, and it is precisely their emotional efficacy that makes the big moments work so well.

It all comes down to a phone call. It’s high school graduation (a refreshing timeframe), and class valedictorian Diane Court has her college plans all laid out nicely in front of her – a fellowship in England, among others – mostly courtesy her career/academic-minded dad, the guardian she chose amid a custody battle when Diane was 12. Enter Lloyd Dobler, a profound thinker and overall funny guy but majpr-league underachiever. With no immediate career plans, he opts instead to focus on his kickboxing, and hang around with his gal pals, one of whom can’t quite get over her ex. So what are the chances that untouchable Diane will go out with ne’er-do-well Lloyd when he calls. Pretty good. Why? “He makes me laugh.”

They go to a huge graduation bush, and the mutual attraction grows, with Diane particularly impressed by Lloyd’s charming blend of old-school chivalry and modern depth of thought. Diane, too, likes to dig beyond he surface, a quality, perhaps, that Lloyd wasn’t expecting in a girl so pretty and popular. But then, maybe that explains her disenfranchisement with the school elite, and her attraction toward Lloyd, which by now has entered a more carnal phase, much to the disapproval of Diane’s dad, Jim.

But Jim’s own relationship with his daughter is threatened by his past. The owner and operator of a nursing home, he appears to have a strong moral fiber. But the IRS has uncovered some duplicitous dealings, including his fleecing of deceased nursing home residents out of thousands of dollars. After Diane breaks up with Lloyd, in no small part due to her dad’s disapproval of him, she discovers the larceny. Realizing Dad should no longer have any real control over her life, she trusts her heart, and gets back together with Lloyd. They both pay one last visit to Jim, now incarcerated, before both heading off to England for that fellowship.

Any meaningful discussion of this film must necessarily include praise of Crowe’s screenplay, work that is as honestly observed as it is majestic in its theatrics. Crowe had been a protégée of James L. Brooks for several years (Anything is produced by Brooks’ Gracie Films), and you can tell the influence. Both writers understand that balance between over and underwriting – the urge to load the characters up with smart, witty dialogue while holding back just enough to allow then to be… human. And Crowe also loads his film up with other characters and subplots too. but he never overloads – something he would be guilty of I later pictures. But here, for his starter, it’s just enough so to buoy his central story without overshadowing it – and it shows us the social satellites that play an important part in his lead characters’ lives.

I mentioned before that this is a formula pic, and although it elevates it impressively it still holds true to it; indeed that is part of its appeal. We’ve all been there, and surely often wished, desperately, that the one girl or boy who would be so perfect to date could be just down to earth enough to get to know. Yes, of course, it’s an absolute fantasy, but Say Anything renders it credible by having two socially polar opposites possess enough intelligence in common to make it work, knocking that social strata down handily. It’s a fantasy all right, but just like credible science fiction it uses intelligence to make its conceit just squeak by.

And here’s another thing I liked. By having the father under criminal investigation, Crowe tells us that there are always reasons for interpersonal issues inn or lives, some which may not be so visible on the surface. When Lloyd and Diane break up, it’s not just the fact that they’re s different – she has her own familial demons to wrestle, beyond Lloyd’s purview, and it serves as a reminder to al of us that maybe it’s not always we who are at fault. Again, it’s this kind of attention to the cause/effect realties of life that afford the film its knowing verisimilitude.

And I also want to focus on one other element: Ione Skye, who plays Diane. She is a wonder to behold, and gives the film its heart and soul, but especially heart. Not only is she ravishingly beautiful, but she possesses both a admirable maturity and empathic vulnerability. She’s the girlfriend we all had, or at least wish we had, at some point in our lives. You wait, so desperately, for her to reconcile with Lloyd, who represents us (or at least the guys). Who among us couldn’t identify with him when he shakes as they’re in the car making out? Or want her back so bad he holds a boom box outside her window in that classic scene? I’m convinced the film would have had nearly the same impact with another actress in the lead – Ione pretty much makes the film, and that says a lot given all the other superb elements at play here.

I could go on and on and on here, but I’ll stop. You get the point. If there is a better film about teenage love, teenage heartbreak… teenage life… then I haven’t seen it.

I’ll say it again, my star-rating system caps at 4, so I regret that I can only give Say Anything…

Rating:  ****