SAY ANYTHING
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: One more comedy about high school
dating, yet for once one that can be enjoyed by adults. John
Mahoney is excellent as the father of the school
valedictorian and John Cusack is nearly as good as a brash
and quirky kick-boxer intent on wooing Mahoney's daughter.
Rating: +2.
There must be at least a hundred high school dating movies made each year by Hollywood since there are about two new ones on cable each week. It would be very easy to assume that this type of film had been all mined out and that there was not much more that could be done with it. But in fact there is always room in any genre for a film of fresh and well-observed characters. Humans like looking at humans and seeing how humans behave. James Bonds are fun to watch too, or sexy mannequins doing unrealistic things under some circumstances, but a film that shows fresh and real people will always be a joy to watch. SAY ANYTHING is unique and a very human comedy/drama.
Diane Court (played by Ione Skye) has it all. She is class valedictorian, she has won a prestigious fellowship to study in England, she is beautiful, and in all probability she has butterscotch in her veins. Lloyd Dobler (played by John Cusack) is not good-looking and is below average in his class. He has no goals except to be a better kick-boxer and to date Diane. Sound familiar? Except for the valedictorian part it has been done hundreds of times. Give the film half an hour and you will start to like this film a lot better, particularly James Court, played superbly by John Mahoney, who goes from bemused at Lloyd, to protective of his daughter through a lot more changes until he becomes the focal point of the film. SAY ANYTHING goes from a teen comedy to a very solid drama of human interaction.
The writer/director of SAY ANYTHING is Cameron Crowe, who is best known for screenwriting FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH based on his novel of the same name. That film was about 90% teen comedy but had a surprisingly solid piece of human drama at its core. This time the comedy is more even balanced with the drama. SAY ANYTHING joins TERMS OF ENDEARMENT and BROADCAST NEWS as a James L. Brooks produced film. of a woman choosing between love and loyalty. That may, of course, be coincidental, but because each triangle is resolved in a different and believable way, the films make an excellent trilogy. Through unlike Debra Winger and Holly Hunter, Ione Skye cannot quite hold her own for audience interest against the other two vertices. While it is not quite the strength of a BROADCAST NEWS (nor probably TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, though I am not as fond of that film), SAY ANYTHING does the nearly impossible of making a satisfying film from a high school dating comedy. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzz!leeper
leeper@mtgzz.att.com
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews