Some Kind of Wonderful

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Director: Howard Deutch

Stars: Mary Stuart Masterson, Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson

Year: 1987 Running Time: 93 mins Rating:

CERT: 15

Reversing the set-up of his mega-hit Pretty In Pink, writing dynamo John Hughes delivers and equally engaging bittersweet love triangle fuelled by teen angst and 80s hair products. Cool dude Eric Stoltz wants school smasher Lea Thompson so badly he can't see that his best friend Mary Stuart Masterson is head over her tomboyish heels for him. All together now: "Don't you... forget about me..."

Review

Writer/producer John Hughes has enjoyed a prolific Hollywood career spanning angst-ridden teen-dramas with the Brat Pack, screwball comedies for Chevy Chase and Steve Martin and family comedies - Uncle Buck and the hugely successful Home Alone among them.

Some Kind of Wonderful (directed by Hughes collaborator Howard Deutch) falls into the first category, and confirms Hughes' standing as one of the most insightful writers around on contemporary American youth.

Eric Stoltz is the focus of attention here. He's a rather fey youth chasing the most popular girl in school, unaware that his tomboy best friend also has the hots for him.

The bond between him and Mary Stuart Masterson (in her most assured performance to that date) as the tongue-tied best friend is nicely etched out, and for once the adult characters have shape and depth rather than emerging as mere caricatures.