Writing
a review for a movie that I've seen a million times is so much harder
than writing for some random B-Movie I've only just managed to sit
through. I can't really pinpoint why - it should be far easier to
recall what I liked and didn't like about something I've viewed so
often, but with movies like this one, I kind of feel like my normally
unbiased opinion is clouded with love. I love this movie.
 Samantha Baker is a plain looking, average teenage sophmore from an
absolutely insane family that's probably not unlike your own. Think
Lane Meyer's with more kids. The majority of the film takes place
on her sixteenth birthday - which turns out to be the most painful,
sad, humiliating, disastrous day of her life. If I was her, I
would be taking a page out of Lane's book and drinking paint thinner at
the dinner table.
Sam wakes up and studies herself in the mirror, to see if turning
sixteen has made any visible improvements. Just as she expected, it
hasn't, and she is still the same forgettable girl she was
yesterday. Cutting a phone conversation short with her best friend
Randy, she heads downstairs to deal with her family, who
she has surmised will be pissed she didn't let them wish her a happy
birthday yet. Unfortunately for Sam, the house has been turned
inside out with the impending wedding of her sister Ginny, and no-one
remembers her birthday at all.
 At school, things don't get much better. In independent study Sam fills
out an anonymous survey for sex ed, where she has to name who she would
do it with. She names Jake Ryan - a popular, rich and
gorgeous senior who she thinks has no idea that she is alive. She
attempts to pass it to Randy, who has fallen asleep behind her. It
falls on the floor and without Samantha knowing, Jake reaches over and
picks it up.
 On the bus on the way home, Sam gets hit on by Ted - the geekiest
freshman in the school, who is convinced she is the girl for him and
will do anything to get to know her better. Repulsed, she finally
makes it home - but discovers her Grandparents are staying in her room.
After dropping hints that she may look older, she
discovers that her Grandparents have forgotten her birthday too - and
she's spending the duration of their stay sharing a room with her
obnoxious brother Mike. Heading down to Mikes room, she runs in to the
other Grandparents, who
instead of wishing her a happy birthday, tell knock knock jokes and
remark about how she's gotten her boobies before moving into
cop a feel. Humiliated, she goes to Mikes room to lie down, but
discovers there's a weird Chinese guy in there named Long Duc Dong
- an exchange student staying with the grandparents. Things get
considerably worse when the grandparents suggest Sam take Long Duc
Dong to the dance at school that evening.
Sam goes to the dance and meets up with Randy, and it isn't long before
she is accosted by Ted, turning her night from bad to worse. Little
does she know that Jake has been watching her from across
the room. He's tired of the party girl antics of his "perfect"
girlfriend Caroline, and thinks that Sam may be just what he
is looking for in a girl. Jake stops Ted in the gym, who freaks out
when he asks him about her.
 Sam sneaks out into the auto shop for some time alone, but before long,
Ted has followed her. Deciding to give up, Sam talks to him and tells
him about how much of a shitty day she's been having.
Ted, it turns out, isn't that bad a guy, and the two end up having a
fairly normal conversation. Ted discloses to Sam that he is a
virgin and bet his friends a box of floppy disks that he would do it
with her. She says that even though it is stupid, she is
saving herself for Jake. Ted tells Sam that Jake asked about her, so
she decides to go talk to him, but first, she gives Ted her
underpants as "proof" for his nerd friends. Sam chickens out when she
approaches Jake, and he leaves with Caroline
to go to a party she has organised at his house, and Sam goes home,
defeated. Long Duc Dong has picked himself up a girlfriend
and goes to Jakes party where Caroline and her friends have completely
trashed Jakes house. Angry, he goes to his room and closes
the door on Carolines hair, trapping her there forcing her very drunk
friends to cut her free. Jake tries to phone Samantha, but
her Grandparents are staying in her room and will not let him speak to
her.
 Sam's Dad wakes her in the middle of the night, realising he has
forgotten her birthday. By this stage she has gone through so much that
it's not that big of an issue anymore, and ends up spilling
her heart out about Jake. Her dad explains to her that when it happens
to her, it will be forever, and she must let him know she
wears the pants - reminding her that Ted still has her undies. Ted has
infact, traded them to Jake for an opportunity to drive
an extremely blitzed Caroline home in his fathers Rolls Royce.
Jakes efforts to reach Samantha finally pay off when he is able to see
her after her sisters wedding, and Samantha realises that it isn't such
a bad birthday after all.
Sixteen Candles WAS the 80's. Now, I was born in '82 so I'm very likely
wrong, but growing up watching this movie over and over, I wanted to
live in America, in the 80's and go to school in one of John
Hughes' movies. Sixteen Candles just epitomised everything I believed
that being a teenager in the 80's was. Apart from Jake and
Caroline, and lets face it - there's a Caroline and a Jake at every
school, all of the kids do indeed look like high school kids -
and most of the actors were teenagers when it was filmed, making it
feel so much more believable.
If you haven't seen this movie, I'd like to know what rock you have
been living under since 1984. Oh yeah, and Michael Schoeffling is
freaking HOT! And I can't not
mention the fact that both John Cusack and Liane Curtis are in this
movie. I love those two!
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Year:
1984
