Music Box — Friday and Saturday, Midnight
For people of a certain age, Anthony Michael Hall's voiceover that
bookends this film will forever define the only roles everyone at their
high school had to play: a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess,
and a criminal. And for the brat packers who formed our ensemble cast,
these labels would stick with them for the rest of their careers. Watching
this film makes you recall a time when Molly Ringwald (the princess)
was the Emma Stone of her day, and Emilio Estevez (the athlete) was
the Zach Ephron. Both were young and cute, with girl/boy-next-door good
looks, and it seemed that their careers could last forever. Hall was
so good as the pressure-cooked nerd who couldn't get an A in shop class
that he would spend then next decade-plus trying to show his range.
Ally Sheedy (the basket case) is the exception that proves the rule,
as she was able to lose that label as soon as the credits rolled. Our
criminal, played by the now shaggy Judd Nelson, defined cool rebellion
for the better part of a decade and is surely the highlight of the film.
As John Bender, he insulted the school principal right to his face (Does
Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?), hid dope in his locker (and
in AMH's underwear), saw through everyone's bullshit and called them
out on it, and got to make out with the prom queen. John Bender was
also full of some real malice, and had the cigarette burns on his arm
to show us why. Ultimately, he forced a bonding ritual on his fellow
high school students, and seemed to be the life of the party. He was
the hero of the film, but what is left out of the diegesis may be Hughes'
most important comment of all. We know that Bender's triumphant fist
pump to close the movie (“Don't you...forget about me!”) is the
high point of his life. At best he is destined for a crappy job in a
bleak suburb, stuck in a loveless marriage with kids he can't stand.
At worst he's drunk and alone, recounting how he blew his last best
chance with that pretty little rich girl. Easily John Hughes' most mature
effort up to that point, the film encapsulated the social structure
of the white, middle-class, suburban high school experience of the 1980s.
It celebrated the characters and the institutional halls they roamed,
but also paid respect to their anxieties and problems, and never implied
that these weren't the best years of their lives. (1985, 97 min, 35mm) Cine-File.info
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