140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW
Not technically a remake of Pretty In Pink, it nevertheless sort of is. But not as good. Or good at all, really. Guess you had to be there.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Some Kind of Wonderful:
Definitely a case of a film that, not having seen it after all these years, I probably should have just continued to not watch it. Because I find it hard to be truly fair with Some Kind of Wonderful. I know lots of people love the movie, and it was fairly well received by critics at the time, with some suggesting it was an improvement on Pretty In Pink. But I just don’t see it.
Would it be petty and simplistic to say that the biggest issue I have with Some Kind of Wonderful is that it does not feature the fantastic Gerry Coffin/Carole King song of the same name? Not totally serious (not totally joking either)…
No, the real problem is the pacing and execution of the narrative. The whole film seems like a Reader’s Digest condensed book, as though someone took a better, nuanced film and severely edited it for TV run-time. It’s just in such a rush. I know John Hughes wrote astonishingly quickly, a product of his start in advertising and then magazine publication, and maybe those roots inform this picture more than anything. Featuring the same director, Howard Deutch, writer (Hughes) and some of the same production team, it was released only a year (almost to the day – actually only 364 days) after Pretty In Pink. Maybe it really is that advertising instinct of rushing a product to market.
The anecdotal / apocryphal line on this film is that Hughes was forced into an ending he didn’t want for Pretty In Pink due to test audience reactions and studio pressure, so he made Some Kind of Wonderful to get the ending he wanted. He simply swapped the genders in the love triangle and made sure it was the two kids from the wrong side of the tracks who got together this time. (Maybe it should have been called Pretty In Pink 2: Duckie’s Revenge…)
I have no idea if this story is true. It feels true, but there are many stories that seem too perfect not to be true but are nevertheless not borne out by the facts. (e.g., the prevailing belief that Big Trouble In Little China was originally written as the planned sequel to Buckaroo Banzai but was re-purposed into a new story when Banzai flopped. It seems true, it feels true – they share a main filmmaker, the timing makes sense – but it’s simply not so.)
If this is indeed the correct information on the provenance of Some Kind of Wonderful, it may help explain why Molly Ringwald took a pass on essentially making the same film twice. What seems irrefutable is that Ringwald turning down this film ended both her collaboration and friendship with Hughes, who was certainly known to hold a grudge. It’s really a shame they fell out, as their partnership produced three classic films, and any reasonable person can understand why an actor would want to move on to avoid being typecast.
Here are a few of the reasons I found Some Kind of Wonderful so unsatisfying:
- The actors are far too old. Sure, this is true of many if not all teen movies, but Eric Stoltz was 25-26 at time of filming. C’mon…
- It’s simply not believable that anyone would choose Amanda (Lea Thompson) over Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) for any part of the story. I’m not talking about the actresses themselves (well, maybe a little) but their characters. The whole plot of Keith (Stoltz) being obsessed with Amanda makes perfect sense – until they meet. At that point the complete lack of chemistry or even coordinated conversation should have been a deal-breaker. What makes it worse is that the two have most twisted interactions once they actually have their date. Which leads me to:
- THE DATE. I put it in caps because it clearly is this enormous momentous event in the picture. This is what I’m talking about with the sprinters pace of the picture; every agent of change in the picture occurs before the big date. It’s like they are dealing with the consequences of an action before the action itself. The second these two characters are even contemplating going out on a date everyone turns the volume up to 11. We never really get to see Watts & Keith’s friendship. It’s not the slow burner of a friendship that gains a new aspect. They know each other – not even really well, and then she’s grilling him about this other girl. Really within the first conversation between these two friends where Keith asks Watts about Amanda the dynamic changes. Instead of the feeling that maybe Watts is beginning to see something else in her friend, it comes off as a knee-jerk jealous reaction, as though she is only interested in Keith once he’s attracted to someone else. And I don’t think that’s what the character’s arc is meant to be.
- Since Hughes is such a great writer, I’m quite sure this is supposed to indicate the intricacies of personal relationships and the subtlety of those interactions. But it doesn’t. Some Kind of Wonderful feels like a typical teen movie in this and only this respect; everything leads to the big event (usually a dance or party).
- The internal logic of the characters and the narrative simply don’t make sense. I still don’t understand Keith’s actions or what the whole money subplot is about. I don’t get why he’s spending to put on a show for Amanda, I don’t get why he still wants to go out with her if he thinks it’s all a set-up, or if he does why he then acts the way he does. I don’t understand what she’s after or why they come together only when they’re being jerks to each other. I don’t get why Watts wants to tag along and I don’t get anything about how this thing ends. The ending makes every character less likable except possibly Amanda. Even Duncan seems lessened…
On the plus side of the ledger, the acting is quite good. Stoltz, Thompson and especially Masterson are excellent, though I wish they had a longer run-time to let things simmer a bit more. It was great to see Springfield, MA native John Ashton get a role that let him show that he’s more than just a hard-ass; he’s really been under-utilized over his career. Elias Koteas is a lot of fun as the tough-guy Duncan, justifying the sizable amount of screen-time for such a minor character.
The music is also quite good; it even has two separate versions of the Stones’ Miss Amanda Jones – the source of the character’s name, I presume. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. When I heard The March Violets version I actually groaned, not recognizing the original tune and thinking they’d written a theme song for the milquetoast character. But the original recording effectively anchors the pre-date montage. The opening credits sequence works very well, too.
Despite all of the above objections, I can’t be too hard on Some Kind of Wonderful. I can recognize the bones of a better movie in here, and more importantly I know enough that these things never quite play out as well after the fact. When the film was released in 1987 I’m sure it was incredibly meaningful to a lot of people – some of my friends among them – and I probably would have gotten more out of it at the time.
The really funny thing is that I actually have grown to appreciate this film more in the weeks since I watched it. As I wrote this piece and looked for images and quotes and just generally reflected more on it, I found myself re-evaluating my earlier criticism. While I still steadfastly insist that Some Kind of Wonderful is a hurried and unsubtle mess, as I’ve let the film rest in my head for a bit I’ve come to respect what they’re going for here. If you look at the film as a selection of “John Hughes” moments rather than the cohesive film that it isn’t you can find some good stuff here. That’s without re-watching it. Funny how that happens with movies sometimes; they take on additional value or meaning if you leave yourself time to let them settle in your mind. Of course, I’d argue that if the filmmakers had taken that same advice about leaving room to let things slowly germinate, I wouldn’t have had to deal with such a mixed bag in the first place…
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Pass
The Representation Test Score: C (5 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)
| Main Cast | Eric Stoltz Keith Nelson, Mary Stuart Masterson Watts, Lea Thompson Amanda Jones, Craig Sheffer Hardy Jenns |
| Rating | PG-13 |
| Release Date | Fri 27 Feb 1987 UTC |
| Director | Howard Deutch |
| Genres | Drama, Romance |
| Plot | A young tomboy, Watts, finds her feelings for her best friend, Keith, run deeper than just friendship… |
| Poster |  |
| Runtime | 95 |
| Tagline | Before they could stand together, they had to stand alone. |
| Writers | John Hughes (written by) |
| Year | 1987 |
