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Say Anything...The movie business has few better ideas men than James L Brooks. Executive producer on 'The Simpsons' and the force behind hit movies like As Good As It Gets and Broadcast News, we have Brooks to thank for the very excellent Say Anything... He was inspired by seeing a man and his daughter walking hand-in-hand at the mall; he thought there was an interesting story to tell about what would happen if the father committed a crime.
The task of transforming this seed of an idea into a screenplay fell to former 'Rolling Stone' journalist Cameron Crowe. Now best known for winning an Oscar for Almost Famous and for stuffing up Vanilla Sky, Crowe was well-qualified to tackle a teen movie, having gone undercover at his former school for the magazine article that would become Fast Times At Ridgemont High. But while the characters in that movie were amusing stereotypes, in Say Anything... Crowe - in collaboration with the greatest young actor of the time, John Cusack - created one of the most realistic teens in cinema, the marvelously monikered Lloyd Dobler.
Dedicated to hanging out and the noble sport of kickboxing, Lloyd's the sort of guy nice girls avoid, which is bad news for him, as he has fallen for valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye). And even as he attempts to win over Diane, Lloyd has to deal with her protective dad James (John Mahoney) who doesn't want his daughter having anything to do with Dobler. However, Mr Court is not quite the upstanding citizen he first appears to be.
The idea at the centre of Say Anything... - two opposites attracting in spite of pressure from their peers and parents - wouldn't look out of place in a John Hughes movie. But what the movie lacks in originality is compensated for by Crowe's top-drawer dialogue and efficient storytelling, and the excellent all-round performances. That John Cusack appeared in almost a dozen 1980s teen movie was less to do with his availability than his ability to tap into the intelligence as well as the mood of the pre-grunge generation. As Dobler, he simultaneously manages to be everything a teen wants to be and everything they fear they are - an incredible feat that he makes seem very simple.
With Cusack blazing a trail, his co-stars might easily have been left behind. But Mahoney and Skye make for a very convincing father-daughter pair, and both Polly Platt and the idiosyncratic Lili Taylor are on very good form. And this being a John Cusack movie, there are naturally cameos from his friend Jeremy Piven and his sister Joan.
Despite its many qualities, Say Anything... went straight to video when originally released in the UK. Thankfully, the passing of time has seen the movie re-evaluated as among the finest films of the late 1980s. As for its pivotal scene, it says everything about Say Anything... that it was spoofed in the superb slacker sit-com 'Spaced'.
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