*** Contains Spoilers***
I first saw this film in ninth grade 23 years ago, and fell in love with it as a teenage girl. I saw it again the other day, and loved it just as much. It's flat out a great movie, and the chemistry between Vincent Spano and Rosanna Arquette is palpable. These two fantastic actors bring a warmth and sensitivity to their characters who would be otherwise unlikeable if played by any other actors. Arquette's innocent beauty and Spano's edgy good looks are perfect for these roles.
When they meet in high school, Jill (Arquette) is a sheltered, pampered princess whose grand passion is acting in the school play. Sheik (Spano) is the new boy at school who sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all the schoolboys that Jill is surrounded by. His grand passion is Jill, and she's attracted to this dark and dangerous charmer. The fact that he's obsessive and volatile only make her more titilated, and when he kidnaps her and holds her and her friend at gunpoint (albeit it's an unloaded gun), she doesn't hesitate to date him again. Only later on in college does the experience come back to haunt her.
While in her freshman year, Jill finds herself in Sheik's shoes in the sense that she's an outsider in the crowd she's surrounded with up at school. In high school, she was a big fish in a small pond. At college, she's a little fish in a large pond. When she seeks him out in Miami Beach where he's attempting to break into show business in a seedy little club, she ends up sleeping with him all the while knowing that they have no future because he's not the kind of man she can see settling down with. He's too volatile and obsessive for her somewhat still innocent liking, and their personalities just don't mesh together for any real future together. He's old-school macho and she's a liberated pseudohippy.
The music is terrific-60's classics mixed with two of Jersey's finest, Springsteen and Sinatra that carry the storyline and add to the emotion of the film.
Breakout performances by both stars, with strong support from Tracy Pollan, Matthew Modine and Liane Curtis (in a one-eighty from her role as Molly Ringwald's best friend in Sixteen Candles). This film is a coming of age love story for the ages, and it absolutely stands the test of time. A 10 of 10!
I first saw this film in ninth grade 23 years ago, and fell in love with it as a teenage girl. I saw it again the other day, and loved it just as much. It's flat out a great movie, and the chemistry between Vincent Spano and Rosanna Arquette is palpable. These two fantastic actors bring a warmth and sensitivity to their characters who would be otherwise unlikeable if played by any other actors. Arquette's innocent beauty and Spano's edgy good looks are perfect for these roles.
When they meet in high school, Jill (Arquette) is a sheltered, pampered princess whose grand passion is acting in the school play. Sheik (Spano) is the new boy at school who sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all the schoolboys that Jill is surrounded by. His grand passion is Jill, and she's attracted to this dark and dangerous charmer. The fact that he's obsessive and volatile only make her more titilated, and when he kidnaps her and holds her and her friend at gunpoint (albeit it's an unloaded gun), she doesn't hesitate to date him again. Only later on in college does the experience come back to haunt her.
While in her freshman year, Jill finds herself in Sheik's shoes in the sense that she's an outsider in the crowd she's surrounded with up at school. In high school, she was a big fish in a small pond. At college, she's a little fish in a large pond. When she seeks him out in Miami Beach where he's attempting to break into show business in a seedy little club, she ends up sleeping with him all the while knowing that they have no future because he's not the kind of man she can see settling down with. He's too volatile and obsessive for her somewhat still innocent liking, and their personalities just don't mesh together for any real future together. He's old-school macho and she's a liberated pseudohippy.
The music is terrific-60's classics mixed with two of Jersey's finest, Springsteen and Sinatra that carry the storyline and add to the emotion of the film.
Breakout performances by both stars, with strong support from Tracy Pollan, Matthew Modine and Liane Curtis (in a one-eighty from her role as Molly Ringwald's best friend in Sixteen Candles). This film is a coming of age love story for the ages, and it absolutely stands the test of time. A 10 of 10!