Like most 80s high school movies, this has sadly, badly dated. Sadly, because it stars the incomparable John Cusack, the only reason for still watching this, giving a typically rich performance alternating nervy confidence with masked vulnerability. He plays Lloyd Dobler, an average(ish) high school student who is about to graduate. He lives with his single mother sister Constance and her young son, while his parents are with the American army in Germany.
He is besotted with Diane Court, an apparently beautiful brainbox whose astonishing academic success has been achieved at the cost of peer contact. She lives with her father, James, who runs a lucrative old folks home, and who comes under investigation from the IRS for mismanaging and defrauding his clients' money. Diane is awarded a prestigious scholarship in England, but becomes derailed by her relationship with LLoyd, who, for all his aimlessness, offers her an emotional security she never had with her acrimoniously divorced parents. She is seemingly obliged to decide between Lloyd and a glittering career, until shock revelations about her father force things to a head.
There is nothing offensively wrong with SAY ANYTHING. There is vague pleasure to be had in spotting future minor celebrities (Eric Stoltz, Jeremy Piven, Lili Taylor). Writer/director Crowe tries to incorporate a few formal devices into a generally naturalistic framework, such as the pseudo-Greek chorus of Lloyd's three girlfriends counterpointed with his late-night advice session from his male friends.
The film is also mildly subversive. The scene seems set for a reactionary tract about broken homes - Lloyd's parents are absent, Diane's are divorced. It might be suggested that the fears and aimlessness felt by the young in the movie arise from a lack of direction offered by the parents. The parents are the culpable ones here, in Diane's case horrifically, unexpectedly so. Lloyd is a thoroughly decent and dependable, as a surrogate father, as a kick-boxing coach. Diane is finally able to make a decision after the burden of parental pressure is lifted. It is seen as right to abandon the tainted tradition of the past.
This is figured in the wonderful role-reversal ending. All the way, as Hollywood convention decrees, it seems as if Lloyd, as male hero, is going to be Diane's teacher, despite her brains - he shows her how to fit in with her peers, how to achieve independence from her father, how to drive etc. But at the end, he goes to England with her; she is allowed fulfil her career; he is the, usually female-coded, hanger-on. An 80s film about leaving America for Europe suggests an anti-Jamesian quest for freedom from corruption, uncertainty etc. Happily, the film ends on unbalance and doubt.
ANYTHING's problems are two-fold: contrivance and lack of humour. There is an air of phoniness about the whole thing, from the tried and tired 80s high school movie rituals, to the gropings for emotion (using sub-Phil Collins music as signifiers for emotion is really tacky and distancing). The whole film, as my wife pointed out, is shot in a flat, TV-movie style, which focuses the now embarrassing 80s detritus.
The lack of humour is the fatal flaw for a supposed comedy - anything that could be satirised is turned into melodrama; the fratboy slapstick has been done better elsewhere, the determination to take these characters oh-so-seriously lessens any attempt to see their angst as faintly ridiculous. Which leaves verbal comedy. As the title suggest, there is a running thematic motif concerning communication, truth, concealment, the ability to formulate emotion in words. You can't say anything, it must be the right thing. But too much talk and too little visual distance results in a very dull film. It IS interesting that middle-class white boys wanted to be black so early as 1989. Of course, there isn't a single black character in the film.
He is besotted with Diane Court, an apparently beautiful brainbox whose astonishing academic success has been achieved at the cost of peer contact. She lives with her father, James, who runs a lucrative old folks home, and who comes under investigation from the IRS for mismanaging and defrauding his clients' money. Diane is awarded a prestigious scholarship in England, but becomes derailed by her relationship with LLoyd, who, for all his aimlessness, offers her an emotional security she never had with her acrimoniously divorced parents. She is seemingly obliged to decide between Lloyd and a glittering career, until shock revelations about her father force things to a head.
There is nothing offensively wrong with SAY ANYTHING. There is vague pleasure to be had in spotting future minor celebrities (Eric Stoltz, Jeremy Piven, Lili Taylor). Writer/director Crowe tries to incorporate a few formal devices into a generally naturalistic framework, such as the pseudo-Greek chorus of Lloyd's three girlfriends counterpointed with his late-night advice session from his male friends.
The film is also mildly subversive. The scene seems set for a reactionary tract about broken homes - Lloyd's parents are absent, Diane's are divorced. It might be suggested that the fears and aimlessness felt by the young in the movie arise from a lack of direction offered by the parents. The parents are the culpable ones here, in Diane's case horrifically, unexpectedly so. Lloyd is a thoroughly decent and dependable, as a surrogate father, as a kick-boxing coach. Diane is finally able to make a decision after the burden of parental pressure is lifted. It is seen as right to abandon the tainted tradition of the past.
This is figured in the wonderful role-reversal ending. All the way, as Hollywood convention decrees, it seems as if Lloyd, as male hero, is going to be Diane's teacher, despite her brains - he shows her how to fit in with her peers, how to achieve independence from her father, how to drive etc. But at the end, he goes to England with her; she is allowed fulfil her career; he is the, usually female-coded, hanger-on. An 80s film about leaving America for Europe suggests an anti-Jamesian quest for freedom from corruption, uncertainty etc. Happily, the film ends on unbalance and doubt.
ANYTHING's problems are two-fold: contrivance and lack of humour. There is an air of phoniness about the whole thing, from the tried and tired 80s high school movie rituals, to the gropings for emotion (using sub-Phil Collins music as signifiers for emotion is really tacky and distancing). The whole film, as my wife pointed out, is shot in a flat, TV-movie style, which focuses the now embarrassing 80s detritus.
The lack of humour is the fatal flaw for a supposed comedy - anything that could be satirised is turned into melodrama; the fratboy slapstick has been done better elsewhere, the determination to take these characters oh-so-seriously lessens any attempt to see their angst as faintly ridiculous. Which leaves verbal comedy. As the title suggest, there is a running thematic motif concerning communication, truth, concealment, the ability to formulate emotion in words. You can't say anything, it must be the right thing. But too much talk and too little visual distance results in a very dull film. It IS interesting that middle-class white boys wanted to be black so early as 1989. Of course, there isn't a single black character in the film.