When I first saw this one late night on a local station, I was already much too old for its target audience. Yet I couldn't help but be drawn into this world. Yes, the kids were somewhat stereotyped and unrealistic. But my own prom was never this much fun. Not to mention a cast that was a Who's Who of late '80s sitcoms from all four networks of the time.
Cut to today, fourteen years after the movie premiered. Hens Tooth Video's new DVD is spartan, with no special features whatsoever, but with a nicely sharp picture. And I'm pulled right back into it. Something has changed now. I'm even older, but it still speaks to me. Then it hits me. I'm not only wishing I was young again, I'm also thinking like the parents in this film, whose age I have, alas, reached. I sympathize with them and all their troubles. They no longer seem simply the addled adults. In the final scene at Huds, we see how the experiences of their own youth shaped and misshaped their adult lives. And in truth, not many of us weren't badly messed up as kids. The movie feels more balanced, now that I've seen it from both sides.
So don't just dismiss this as a lightweight teen flick. It has something for everyone - the young, the old and the young at heart.
