‘Say Anything…’ (1989) Review

Say Anything… Synopsis: A noble underachiever and a beautiful valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college.

With high school graduation behind him, Lloyd Dobbler (John Cusack) decides to finally ask out the brainy valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye). Diane has just been awarded a prestigious fellowship to study in England and only has sixteen weeks before she boards a plane overseas. Feeling like she missed out on the normal high school experiences because of her studies, Diane agrees to accompany Lloyd to a graduation party, and from there, their “friends with potential” becomes a powerful coming-of-age story about first love.

I was lucky enough to attend a screening of Say Anything… last night at the Taft Theater in Cincinnati, preceded by a Conversation with John Cusack, which included a moderated discussion and Q&A from the audience.

It was so much fun to see Say Anything… in a theater, especially with an audience that so clearly loved it as much as I did. Having recently been let down more by Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, revisiting one of the seminal teen movies of the ’80s was a nice reminder of Crowe’s talent as a writer and director. With focused direction and a clever script, Crowe took the hokey teen romance genre and breathed life into it.

During his Q&A, Cusack explained that he believed Say Anything… was something akin to a feminist film, and I tend to agree with him. Because Lloyd is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, he is a sensitive character, finding more joy in his friendships with Corey (Lili Taylor) and DC (Amy Brooks) than the guys he occasionally hangs around with. He is supportive of Diane and her ambitions and hopes for the future, and maybe this is what makes Say Anything… so wonderful.

Lloyd and Diane’s love story is not built on lies or unfair expectations. Lloyd is not the typical brooding jerk who makes Diane feel bad about her desires or the problems she’s suffering from in her personal life. He always treats her father, Jim (the wonderful, late John Mahoney), with respect, even when Jim does not return the favor. He is never embarrassed to tell her how he feels. He’s a quirky, rambling character with no ambition but for kickboxing (“sport of the future”) and spending time with Diane. She is his dream for the future.

It seems like so often in these kinds of movies, the male lead is the one dealing with drama while his love interest is only there to soothe and comfort. In Say Anything… the tables are turned in a way, and the male protagonist is the one following his heart while the female lead takes the wheel to navigate through the complications of life. Thankfully both characters have enough depth that the relationship feels balanced.

Obviously, that may seem like a lot of pressure for a teenage girl, and in a way, it is, but Lloyd never pressures her. He’s determined, yes, but not in an off-putting way to the audience. Despite her reservations (she is leaving the country, after all), Diane falls for Lloyd, and he seems to be the only thing tethering her to the ground when her father is under criminal investigation for IRS fraud.

Ione Skye is simply captivating as Diane. Yes, she is beautiful, and no amount of old grandma clothing will change that, but Skye brings Diane to life with such emotional nuance that she becomes so much more than simply the object of Lloyd’s affection.

Skye and Cusack have some amazing chemistry together, so it’s no surprise that Skye admitted on the audio commentary for Say Anything… that if they hadn’t been involved with other people at the time, she and Cusack would have probably gone home together after they filmed the scene where Lloyd taught Diane how to drive a stick shift.

Skye and Mahoney also work incredibly well together. Their father-daughter relationship in the movie was a nice change from the misogynistic “overprotective father” trope you see so often in these movies. You can sense Jim’s apprehension as Diane begins to fall for Lloyd, but he never tries to break them up. He allows Diane to make her own decisions and tells her, “You can say anything to me”, although it’s clear he may regret having such an open dialogue with his daughter when she enthusiastically admits that she and Lloyd slept together.

As Jim’s world begins to crumble around him, he tells Diane that everything he had ever done had been to provide for her, and you believe him. Mahoney was such a fantastic actor, and he made Jim a somewhat sympathetic character despite the horrible things he was accused of doing. Their relationship starkly contrasts the one Diane shares with her mother (an uncredited cameo by Lois Chiles), a shallow woman who prefers to talk about boys rather than what is happening with her ex-husband. In a brief scene between mother and daughter, you can sense why Diane chose to stay with her father when her parents divorced.

I would be remiss not to give a shoutout to the amazing supporting cast of Say Anything… Any movie co-starring Joan Cusack (John’s real-life sister who also plays his sister in the film) immediately gets a gold star from me because she’s fantastic in everything. Lili Taylor and Amy Brooks are hilariously sweet as Lloyd’s supportive best friends. Watching Lili strum that guitar at the graduation party, determined to sing all 65 songs she wrote about her ex Joe (Loren Dean), is one of the funniest scenes in any teen comedy.

The graduation party alone reminded me of the party scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, complete with the self-disgust a drunken partygoer sees as they stare at themselves in the mirror. Jeremy Piven, Eric Stoltz, Bebe Neuwirth, Gregory Sporleder, Philip Baker Hall, Kim Walker, and even Chynna Phillips make brief but fun appearances in the film as well.

In Say Anything… Crowe gives us a film with characters who feel completely three-dimensional and a genuine romance full of hope and uncertainty. I’ve enjoyed quite a few teen-oriented romantic comedies, but very few feel as authentic as this movie. It’s touching without being melodramatic and incredibly funny without going overboard or resorting to vulgarity or gross-out humor.

Even 30 years later, Say Anything… holds up and doesn’t really feel all that dated to me. The music is amazing; the wardrobe is… well, wonderfully ’80s, and it’s full of so many quotable lines, my favorite being: “I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen.”

During the Q&A with John Cusack, a woman asked him where he thought Diane and Lloyd would be today. Cusack explained that he didn’t usually look back on his movies to predict the unseen outcome of his characters, but he did hope that Diane and Lloyd were happy. I honestly don’t think you can watch the iconic scene of Lloyd holding up his boom box outside of Diane’s bedroom window as ‘In Your Eyes’ plays and come to any other conclusion.