Pretty in Pink

A pretty superior teen angst movie, with John Hughes (executive-producing and scripting but not directing this time) completing the series he began with Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. Being young, Hughes tells us, isn't easy. Red-haired Ringwald has no mother in sight, Harry Dean Stanton for a downbeat father, and an unfortunate high school rep. She wears odd clothes, tools round in a clapped-out Beetle, and works in a record store at weekends (cue Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, etc). Still, she's got lots of spirit, and by the end even the Nice, Unbelievably Rich Kid with the BMW is beginning to recognise what we've known all along: that she's the best thing around. It's a plea on behalf of upward mobility, and - more remarkable - revolves around a single question: will Molly make it to the high school prom? To be able to give this kind of stuff new and sympathetic twists is a tribute to Hughes' skill with narrative, and to Ringwald's magnetism as a performer.