by Kerry Schaffer (Tue Nov 17, 2009)
The 80s were all about teen flicks, usually starring
brat-pack actors and directed by John Hughes. ‘Say Anything,' although of this
genre, was slightly different. For one thing, it was written and directed by
Cameron Crowe, a former Rolling Stone writer who went on to make the
much-acclaimed ‘Jerry Maguire.' For another, there wasn't a single brat-pack
actor in its credits.
The basic storyline is hardly original. Boy Gets Girl. Boy
Loses Girl. Boy Gets Girl Back. What makes it different is who plays the boy:
John Cusack. At the time he was a little-known actor. When the film came out,
he was on his way to being a major heartthrob - for me, at least, and a few
million other women. I've carried a torch for him these last 20 years. This was
the first film to demonstrate Cusack's ability to appear sincere and
believable, yet also unconventional. It also demonstrated that his voice is
able to part a woman's legs in no time.
In the film Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler, a kickboxer who's one
of the original slackers in this world. He isn't sure what he wants to do, but
he knows he doesn't want to ‘sell
anything, buy anything, or process anything.' After graduation from high
school in Seattle, Lloyd asks out Diane (Ione Skye), the class valedictorian
and a seriously pretty girl who for some reason never dates that much. That
reason could be her overprotective father Jim (John Mahoney, who later earned
acclaim as Frasier's dad in the eponymous sitcom, also set in Seattle). Jim
doesn't like Lloyd or Lloyd's stated intention to spend as much time with his
daughter as possible. Of course, Jim has his own secrets. He's under
investigation by the Internal Revenue Service for alleged tax violations at his
nursing home. Diane is torn between spending more time with her father and
being with Lloyd, of whom her father disapproves.
The most iconic scene in the film is Lloyd standing outside
Diane's house with his boom-box blaring Peter Gabriel's ‘In Your Eyes.' Now,
who couldn't fall for a guy who can hoist a boom-box above his head, listen to
Peter Gabriel, and not get tired? And Cusack did it so convincingly. ‘How come
that never happened to me?' was the question a million girls around the world
asked themselves. And are still asking themselves 20 years later. Perhaps we
should have Cameron Crowe write the script for our lives and hire John Cusack
to play our love interest. Of course it couldn't happen now. How stupid would
it look for Cusack to raise an iPod over his head? And have a 50-year-old woman
pop her head out the window while her 80-something-year-old father opens the
front door to try to shoo him away?
‘Say Anything' came out in 1989 and is a film very much of
its time (as illustrated by the boom-box scene). Yet 20 years later I will still
curl up any Saturday night on the couch to watch it. Maybe I should just get
more Cusack films and make a weekend of it. Ah, bliss!
