SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. Directed by Howard Deutch; written and produced by John Hughes for Paramount. Starring Eric Stolz, Mary Stuart Mastereon and Lea Thompson. Rated PG-13 (a little raw language).
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Do you like your movies to tell it like it is? Or do you appreciate their tremendous power to show us our "fantasies in action? Did you like Pretty in Pink?
The answers to these questions will determine how much you would like Some Kind of Wonderful. As realism, in spite of its ring-of-truth dialogue, it doesn't quite pass muster. The story is too familiar and predictable (when life usually isn't) and the main character is miscast. But as the dramatization of the universal teenage fantasy—namely, "me against the world"—it's superb.
Here even its faults work in its favor. The plot is predictable because everyone knows how the successful fulfillment of the fantasy will end. It's familiar because the fantasy is one shared by everyone, at one time or another.
Keith (Stolz) is a high school senior who resents his father's pressure to go to college. He'd rather paint. (The movie gives away its oversimplified view of the the world when no one suggests that he could do both.)
Watts (Masterson) is his best friend since childhood. She's a self-proclaimed punk whose rough talk and appearance barely conceal—surprise!—a sensitive heart pining for Keith. He, on the other hand, has developed an obsession for Amanda (Thompson), one of the most popular girls in school.
Keith is at Some Kind of Wonderful' s main focus and he either makes the movie as fantasy or breaks it as realism. Viewed rationally, Stolz is much too attractive and self-possessed to play such an insecure outsider, as demanded by the script. But judging the movie as teenage wish fulfillment, the casting is a stroke of genius.
The more appealing and sympathetic he is, the better. For the guys, there's the advantageous comparison that can be made: "If he has trouble getting dates, no wonder I do!" As for the gals, well, even those made physically ill by punk rockers will have no trouble identifying with Watts.
Masterson makes this easier by giving a terrific performance as one of the movies' best-loved character types—the hard-boiled tough guy with a heart of pure mush. She's not so comical, but is similar to the character Jon Cryer played in Pretty in Pink. And she steals this show, just as he did that one.
The Pretty in Pink connection goes a lot deeper than this, however. In fact, that last question back in the first paragraph is probably the most important one for you to answer before plunking down hard-earned cash to see Some Kind of Wonderful.
The same director and writer/ producer are responsible for both movies. The stories are almost identical, with only the sexes reversed, and different endings. Both make the same equation of socio-economic level with popularity at school.
The adults are more sympathetically portrayed in Some Kind of Wonderful, but they are also practically non-existent. School—except as a place to socialize and pick up the latest gossip—is even more irrelevant here than in most teenpics.
By and large, if you liked Pretty in Pink enough to see it again, then you'll like Some Kind of Wonderful. If you thought Pink was dumb, then stay away from this one.
March 11, 1987