One of the top tier John Hughes efforts that somehow passed me by until now. Molly Ringwald plays Samantha, and it’s her sixteenth birthday – but her entire family seems to have forgotten. She proceeds to have the worst day imaginable, no thanks to her sister getting married, the weird antics of exchange student Long Duk Dong, obnoxiously over-confident classmate, The Geek, and the fact that she has a cruch on the hottest boy in school. It’s all rather good fun, and plays out pretty conventionally – although what is most interesting is that today, Anthony Michael Hall’s Geek would have probably ended up with the girl, rather than sidelined by Justin Henry’s “jock with a heart”.
Sixteen Candles
