(So your family forgot your birthday - boo-fucking-hoo, toots. Try having them forget you at the shopping mall…)
CAST: Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, Anthony Michael Hall, Haviland Morris, Justin Henry, Blanche Baker, Max Showalter, Carole Cook, Billie Bird, Gedde Watanabe.
DIRECTOR: John Hughes
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and one seriously pouty would-be sweet sixteen debutante - straight ahead…
For a teenager, there are three things that can be considered fates worse than death: (1) having your parents chaperone you on a date; (2) having a parent for a schoolteacher; and (3) having your parents - and the rest of your family - forget all about your birthday. This last bit in particular is a bit crushing if it’s a special birthday - like your sixteenth one. Let me rephrase that: it’s only crushing if you’re a chick. If you’re a guy, it just means that you’re two years closer to being able to move out. For a chick, though, a sixteenth birthday is right up there with her: (1) wedding day; (2) the day she gives birth to her first child, and (3) the day she gets her Macy’s Purchase Card. In other words, it’s pretty major.
Parents and family forgetting a teenager’s sixteenth birthday is the crux of our lastest review, the classic 80’s comedy SIXTEEN CANDLES that started the whole “Brat Pack” phenomenon that would become a punchline before too long. Our heroine is Samantha “Sam” Baker (Molly Ringwald), and we first meet her chatting up best pal Randy (Liane Curtis), all excited about what she perceive as her big day. She ends the conversation with something like: “Well, I better get downstairs because I bet everyone’s just waiting to wish me Happy Birthday!”
Silly delusional bitch.
It doesn’t come as the biggest surprise of the Western World that no one in Sam’s family remembers her birthday. Instead, they are ultra-focused on older sister Ginny’s (Blanche Baker) wedding to a guy they have charitably labeled an “Oily Bo-hunk”. I’m not sure what the hell that is, but when you folks figure it out, please email me. Thanks. Anyhow, all this pre-matrimonial hooplah has led to several things: (1) Sam’s colorful and quirky-in-a-terrifying-way grandparents (Carole Little, Billie Bird, Max Showalter, Edward Andrews) rolling into town, dragging with them a (2) colorful and quirky-in-a-terrifying-way Chinese exchange student named - and I must reiterate I am not making this up - Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), whom (3) Sam is forced to drag to a couple of parties the night before the wedding - which might actually be a possible item # 4 to our earlier list of Fates Worse Than Death For Teenagers.
On top of having her whole family (yes, even the grandparents who normally have this info emblazoned in the prefontal lobes of their brains) forget her birthday, Sam is also struggling with the following things: (1) a crush on her by a freshman so ridiculous he is known by the simple moniker, The Geek (Anthony Michael Hall); and (2) a crush on smokin’ hot stud, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling), who doesn’t know she exists - that is, until he discovers a secret sex ed survey sheet where she mentions she’d like to bang him six ways from Sunday. That’s one way to let the cat out of the bag. But Jake is already dating popular girl Caroline (Haviland Morris). How can Sam compete?
Can this birthday be saved? Will anyone in Sam’s genetic circle ever realize they forgot her sweet sixteenth? Or will they continue to be wrapped up in Ginny’s wedding nightmare? For that matter, how will the wedding turn out? Will it be one for the books? Or one for the dogs? Will Sam realize that Jake is into her? Or will she continue to deny their attraction? What does The Geek want from Sam? Will he turn into an unexpected ally in bringing Jake and Sam together? And again, I ask: can this birthday be saved.
Time will tell. All I know is the guys in my high school ran more towards The Geek than they did to Jake Ryan. Unfortunately…
BUT, SERIOUSLY: From a period between 1984 and 1987, John Hughes was basically God Of Movie-Loving Teens everywhere. Films like PRETTY IN PINK, THE BREAKFAST CLUB, SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, and SIXTEEN CANDLES became the touchstones of a whole generation of young folks. Talk to anyone in their thirties today, and it’s virtually impossible to find someone who hasn’t heard of some, if not all, of the above films. Hughes’s combo of snark and sensitivity spoke to everyone of a certain age in the mid-80’s.
SIXTEEN CANDLES and THE BREAKFAST CLUB kicked off the wave in 1984. Of the two, THE BREAKFAST CLUB is the better movie. SIXTEEN CANDLES, however, is the funnier one - and has a raunchy and politically-incorrect spirit that was surprising for a John Hughes film. Pretty much anything related to Long Duk Dong and his antics is guaranteed to get a laugh, as well as Sam’s interactions with her grandparents.
However, SIXTEEN CANDLES’s comic gold lies in The Geek and his loony efforts to nab Sam. Anthony Michael Hall pretty much makes this movie. As good as Molly Ringwald is in her star-making performance, and as alluring as Michael Schoeffling is as her beyond-her-reach-but-not-really object of affection, it’s Hall who steals the show. It also helps that all three points of hightly-quirky triangle all click with each other.
The gallery of supporting roles are perfectly filled. Paul Dooley and Carlin Glynn make for the perfect oblivious parents, while the quartet of Carole Little, Billie Bird, Max Showalter, and Edward Andrews are the ideal so-strange-they‘re-almost cool grandparents. Justin Henry is sharp as Sam’s smart-ass brother, while you’d have to search pretty far to find an actress better suited to play Sam’s self-absorbed sister than Blanche Baker. And believe me, that’s a compliment.
In the end, SIXTEEN CANDLES may not have aged as well as others in the Hughes canon, but it remains a sharp, funny, irreverent take on growing up, falling in love, and taking a chance.
