PRETTY IN PINK REVIEWED

“Pretty in Pink” is a film that has aged so incredibly poor that it has become insulting. However, it’s different than older hate of “The Goonies” and other trappings of the 1980s. It’s almost like something broke in John Hughes while writing and he handed off a script to a lesser director. The new director didn’t get the subtle bile spewed forth and tried to direct a straight forward teen comedy drama. What resulted was a Reagan era fantasy that made Back to the Future seem like it was created by an underground maverick.

I’ve shared this theory before, but I’ll offer it up. Some of you have heard it before, others need to enjoy it.

I like to view the movie as Andie slowly rejecting the middle class and stepping on everyone to become her idealized upper class self. In a way, it’s a socioeconomic horror movie. Ducky is just as bad, but we’re forced to identify with him as every possible break passes him by due to his own brutal ignorance. Sure, he got Kristy Swanson at the end of the movie, but we know that he has no emotional framework to make that last.

I might be rambling here, as I’m prone to do. But, what if “Pretty in Pink” is a melodrama about how the rise of the Right forced indoctrination or conquest among the middle class? There’s only 2 periods of time shown in the film: the Eisenhower 50s or the Reagan 80s.  Nothing else exists. You are either with the Rich kids living the best of America or you’re trying to get with Annie Potts in your crack den bedroom.

RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW! (on Digital HD, download, non physical media)