SAY ANYTHING

SAY ANYTHING

SPOILER ALERT

Last time I promised to discuss both Say Anything and Better Off Dead in this post.  As much as I hate to go back on my word, however, Better Off Dead isn’t streaming anywhere, so I will just be talking about Say Anything.  In many ways, this film uses the same formula as the other 1980s teenage romcoms I’ve posted about in that there are two guys, one bad and the other good, competing to win the heart of a girl.  The plot of this movie is more complicated, however because in this case the bad guy is the girl’s father.  When the movie opens Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) and best friends Corey (Lili Taylor) and Rebecca (Pamela Adlon) are getting ready for their high school graduation. Suddenly, Lloyd blurts out that he is that going to ask Diane Court (Ione Skye) out on a second date. Corey, who is quick to point out that Lloyd and Diane have never actually been out on a first date, tries to discourage him because the two have little in common. 

Lloyd is an army brat and an average guy with few ambitions.  He moved back to the states from Germany, where his father is stationed, to help his sister Constance (Joan Cusack) when her husband walked out and left her to raise their son alone.   The move is not a big deal for Lloyd because he and his parents, who aren’t even coming to his graduation, are not close.  Although he doesn’t live in town all the time, however, Lloyd is a likable guy and has made many friends.

Diane, on the other hand, is like a celebrity.  She is class valedictorian, has won many academic awards, and has a fellowship to an exclusive college in England.   At the age of thirteen she elected to stay with her father, James Court (John Mahoney), when her parents divorced and has never regretted that decision.  He gives her expensive presents, compliments her constantly, and encourages her to tell him anything.  Unlike Lloyd, who has lived many places, Diane has gone to the same school with the same kids all her life.  She has been so busy excelling academically, however, that she’s never bothered to get to know her classmates and has no friends.    

 That evening after the graduation ceremony is over, Lloyd ignores Corey’s warnings and calls Diane’s house to ask her out.  She is at work at the nursing home her father owns, but he’s at the house and takes the message.   Diane sees it after she gets home and calls Lloyd back but when she finds out he wants to take her out on a date, she says that her whole week is booked.  Rather than taking no for an answer, however, Lloyd invites her to a party that is taking place that night; because he has made her laugh, Diane says yes.  When he comes to pick her up, Lloyd’s black duds contrast markedly with the expensive white dress that Diane has chosen to wear.   The party is attended by most of the kids from school and when Diane walks in, they tell her that Lloyd is not good enough for her.  Over the course of the evening, however, Diane is impressed by her date for a couple of reasons.  First, she notes that he has been made the “keymaster”, the person who makes sure no one drives drunk, meaning people consider him trustworthy.  Later, as they walk across a parking lot, he kicks broken glass out of her path, which indicates that he is considerate.  At the end of the evening, Diane promises Lloyd that she’ll go out with him again before heading inside where her father is waiting.

For their next date, Diane invites Lloyd to her house to have dinner with her dad, his accountant, and two of his female employees.  Just as they are sitting down, the doorbell rings.  The callers are two IRS agents who have come by to inform Mr. Court that he is under investigation for tax evasion.  Diane, who trusts her father completely, is so positive that he has done nothing wrong, she meets with her mother and asks her to say nice things about him.

During the brief time that Diane has left at home, she and Lloyd go out frequently and start to really care about one another.  Finally, one night on the beach while Peter Gabrielle’s song “In Your Eyes” plays on the radio, they have sex, an event that is so momentous for Lloyd he can’t stop trembling.  When Diane gets home, she naturally tells her father what happened, and he seems fine with it.  Lloyd chooses Corey, who knows a lot about love and heartbreak, as his confidant and she encourages him to do something meaningful.    Lloyd hands over a card that he wrote which expresses how much Diane means to him and Corey says that it’s perfect.      

While Diane and Lloyd have been falling in love, however, Mr. Court has been falling in trouble with the government.  The IRS agents go over his books at the nursing home and ask probing questions like why his business’ revenue hasn’t increased in seventeen years.  He slickly responds that his only concern is the well-being of his residents, but his glibness doesn’t fool them.  Diane offers to put off going to England, but her father, who suspects that she really wants to stay for Lloyd, insists that she go and instructs her to break off the relationship before she leaves.  She coyly resists this suggestion by stating she doesn’t know how, to which he smoothly explains that she can simply give Lloyd a pen and send him on his way; she reluctantly obeys. 

Having lost faith in the advice he’s gotten from Corey, Lloyd turns to the losers that hang out at the local convenience store, the Gas and Sip, but they aren’t helpful, either.  Realizing that he must take responsibility for his problems, Lloyd decides to tackle them his way.  He calls Diane’s house frequently to leave messages on her phone, and when she doesn’t respond, he parks below her window and plays “In Your Eyes” on his boom box.  Unbeknownst to him, however, Diane has more pressing matters on her mind.  The IRS has frozen her father’s accounts, an indication that he will soon be arrested, so she goes to the Internal Revenue investigator and begs him to stop harassing her father.  Rather than granting her wish, the agent informs Diane that her dad has been draining his residents’ accounts with bogus charges then stealing whatever money is left in their estates after they die.  When she refuses to believe this, the agent gives her a list of clues she will find if he is guilty: their home will be filled with original art or antique furniture, her father will buy her a lot of expensive gifts, and a cache of cash will be hidden in the house.

After the meeting, Diane goes home, and for the first time really notices the value of their furnishings and the gifts her father has given her, which is considerable.  She then goes into his office, pries open a lockbox, and finds thousands of dollars in cash there.  Shaken, she drives to the nursing home to confront her father and tell him that she knows about the dishonest things he has done.  Instead of being honest, however, Mr. Court insists that he has earned every penny by taking good care of people whose families don’t even bother to visit.  When this doesn’t work, her turns around and claims that he did it for her, like it’s Diane’s fault.

Realizing that her father is a liar who tricked her into breaking up with the only person that has ever made her happy, Diane goes to Lloyd and wins him back by admitting that she loves him.   In the meantime, Mr. Court takes a plea bargain with the IRS and agrees to pay a $125,000 fine, turn his house over to the state, and serve nine months in federal prison; disgusted, Diane washes her hands of him.  Lloyd doesn’t want her to leave for England without saying good-bye to her father, however, so he drives her up to the prison.  To his dismay, when they get there, she refuses to go inside, so he goes in her stead.  Rather than appreciating this, Mr. Court calls him mediocre and accuses him of being a distraction. 

Lloyd, who is not as easily manipulated as Diane, announces that he is going to accompany her to England, then hands over a letter that she has written.  When Mr. Court discovers that she doesn’t even say that she loves him, he is devastated.  Suddenly, he sees Diane walking across the green to patch things up with him before she goes away.  He apologizes for all the terrible things that he’s done, and she agrees to stay in touch. The next day Lloyd joins Diane on the plane and holds her hand because she has always been afraid to fly. 

As I pointed out earlier, this story is about a young woman caught in the unenviable position of having to choose between her boyfriend and her father.  Sociological research has discerned that Americans find females who smile more attractive than those who don’t because they appear easy to get along with.  The trouble is, when we encourage girls to be submissive, we also make them vulnerable.  Diane, for example, is so accustomed to pleasing her father that even her superior intellect cannot see through his duplicitous schemes.  In fact, had it not been the for IRS’s propitious timing, she would have lost her chance to be happy with Lloyd. 

My takeaway from the 1980s teen films that were showcased over the last couple of months is that they caution females of all ages to open their eyes and see people as they really are.  Those who lie, or use a person for sex, or take credit for someone’s accomplishments, or bail when things get rough, are not good people.  But beneath that message lies an overall warning to Americans about what happens when we teach our daughters to be compliant and instruct our sons that it is okay to take advantage of those who trust them. 

Say Anything is an exceptional movie and even if you’ve seen it, I would recommend you watch it again.  Right now, it’s streaming for free on HULU and can be rented on sites like redbox, VUDU, Appletv, and Amazon Prime for $3 to $4.  It is also for sale at Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, and Walmart for a reasonable price.

Tomorrow I begin working from home and it will take me a week or two to see how things shake out.  My next post will a start a of comparison of coming of age films from the 1970s, 1990s, and 2000s to the teen movies of the 1980s.  Till then, use all this home time to catch up on some of the flicks you love and take care of yourselves.  Peace out.