My First Time Watching... PRETTY IN PINK

Editor’s Note: Koren is a millennial movie geek and while we were hanging out at Comic-Con this year, we started talking about classic movies and almost every movie we mentioned, she told us she hadn’t seen it! Over the course of Comic-Con our group would mention a movie, to see if she had seen it, and I started making a list of classic movies that she has never seen. There are hundreds of moves on this list that will continue to grow! I asked her if she would be willing to watch these movies and share her thoughts on these films that she is seeing for the first time. I thought this would be cool and interesting to get a millennial’s point of view of these classic films.

My First Time Watching…. Pretty In Pink

This movie has been sitting in my house, unwrapped in plastic for years. I finally decided to watch it tonight to see what exactly was so amazing about it. Long story short, it was not Howard Deutch’s best film. I wouldn’t even say it was his second best. But if I’m being honest this was my first movie I’ve ever watched of his.

Unaware, I’ve watched episodes of TV Shows he’s directed like Jane The Virgin and Jane By Design. We will ignore the fact both shows have the name ‘Jane’ in them and move on. 

Unlike Howard Deutch, I’ve seen a lot more of Molly Ringwald’s works and I adore her. I first caught a glimpse of her in The Secret Life Of An American Teenager which was ironically the exact moment my mom was like “She’s the girl from Pretty In Pink, I love that movie.” 

Alright, let’s get down to business. First I would like to say this will be a spoiler free review, but if you haven’t seen the classic 1986 movie at this point, you actually are not missing out. 

“A poor girl must choose between the affections of dating her childhood sweetheart or a rich but sensitive playboy.”

This movie follows a lot of the romance genre cliches from love triangles to a boy getting butt hurt after being friend-zoned by their best friend. I absolutely love the romance movie genre… when done correctly and I’m not talking about the newer Romance movies like Isn’t it Romantic and Me Before You. I’m talking romance movies like Dirty Dancing which is a far superior movie than Pretty In Pink will ever be. 

So, the main character who was gracefully played by Molly Ringwald had two boys fawning after her and after a much needed dig into the internet, I realized this was the original team Edward and Team Jacob situation. Except neither of the two choices were even remotely deserving of Ringwald's character. 

It also didn’t have much of a story structure to begin with. Sure, the beginning of the movie caught my attention but as the clock slowly ticked by I found myself checking my phone a lot more, both uninterested in the characters and the all out storyline. I even found myself gleefully turning it off once the credits began to role. 

I didn’t hate everything about the movie though, I did like some aspects. I now want a pink car, the wardrobe was classic, and the soundtrack was on point. 

All in all, if you ever find yourself wrapped up in the “Have you seen this movie” conversation and they ever ask if you’ve seen Pretty In Pink and then say you have to see this film! Don’t rush it, you don’t need to see it and chances are you won’t regret not seeing it.