CAN’T BUY ME LOVE (1987)

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE (1987)

Tagline: Ronald is making an investment in his senior year. He's hiring the prettiest cheerleader in school to be his girlfriend.

(Comedy, Drama, Romance) [PG-13]

Oddly the original title of this movie was “Boy Rents Girl”. What the actual hell? Then you watch this damn thing and that is exactly what happens. In this one Ronald Miller (played by Patrick Dempsey) is a massive lawn-mowing geek at his school in Tucson, AZ. He’s got a few cool geek friends, but apparently, poker night isn’t enough to keep him happy. So he decides to use the money he saved up for a telescope to rent a popular girl at his school named Cindy Mancini (played by Amanda Peterson), by using his money to buy her a dress she needs to have replaced. It doesn’t take long before Ronald starts gaining massive popularity. He gains everything he wanted…but will he lose everything that mattered? 

Oh man, this movie reminds me of the glory days of High School (my Freshman year) and I actually did catch this movie back in the 80’s and enjoyed it quite a bit back then. I think I was just a bit less nerdy than Ronald, but I completely sympathized with his plight. This movie is one of those flicks where someone takes the wrong road to try and get something they thought would be great. Pretty much like half the kids I knew growing up. 

Patrick Dempsey is pretty great in this and a pretty unlikable character, but I couldn’t stand him even more in TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON where he plays an even more unlikeable character. Don’t worry though, there is a nice bow on this thing after some character development. Well, sort of? After watching this again last night, Ronald does one thing in this movie that would have killed it for me if I was a potential love interest, but I don’t want to give too much away. Amanda Peterson is amazing in this as are some of the other characters we get introduced to. One of Cindy’s friends Patty is actually played by Darcy DeMoss who was famous for the motor home scene in JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI. Overall the acting in this movie is top notch and it’s one of the better teen comedies that came out around this time.

Cinematically it’s pretty well shot but isn’t “one for the ages” if that makes any sense. Soundtrack-wise this one doesn’t blow me away either, but it did have Billy Idol’s “Dancin’ With Myself”, and the eclectic “Living In A Box” by the band Living In A Box, so those are both decent tracks in my book. 

There are some ideas and dialog in this movie that feel a little out of place and tacky, but overall, it’s pretty well done, and out of all the teen comedies of the 80’s this one I remembered pretty vividly even before watching it recently. It’s not a perfect movie and I did find Ronald actually “un-likable” for most of this movie, so for that reason, it slides down a notch on my rating scale to a 6 out of 7. It is a near-perfect teen romance comedy for the 80s and has aged pretty decently over the years.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF TOUCHSTONE PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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