Um Romance Maluco

"Baby It's You" isn't exactly a "great film," but it sure is an accurate and believable story about young love. Arquette is the Jewish high school girl who is going places in life. She plays it safe, but she's bored with it all. Until she meets Sheik, the Italian guy from the wrong side of the tracks. He's a dreamer and his future is uncertain, but... man is he a sharp dresser and cooler than any of the lame boys in high school. This guy even makes the male teachers feel inadequate with his expensive suits and suave good looks. Sheik is played by Vincent Spano, an extremely underrated and unappreciated actor who usually appeared in movies that were unworthy of his qualities. Whenever Spano is on screen the movie really shines. The story follows Rosanna's character beyond high school and into college, and as is usually the case, she begins to outgrow her man... or so she thinks. Because the mature guys she meets are a bunch of complete bores, and they all pale in comparison to Sheik, who gives up everything to return to Jersey from Florida, in a last ditch attempt to win back the love of his life. That's basically it, but the performances and the realistic story are enough to maintain interest. Taking place in the early 60s, director John Sayles captures the period in beautiful detail, and the soundtrack is excellent, featuring some early Bruce Springsteen songs, which fit the mood perfectly. Even though the songs are patently 70s and not from the Era in which the movie takes place, they still sound right. I think "Baby It's You" is somewhat of a cult film today, and deservedly so. Fans of either Rosanna Arquette or Vincent Spano will thoroughly enjoy it, as will those who can appreciate an honest look at young love...

I echo the comments of the other review posted here. The movie seems very uneven, and that adds to its lure. The interaction of Spano and Arquette seems all at once real and surreal. Any movie which makes me think of it into the next day, must have significant substance. It is rare to consider "uneven" a positive quality to a movie, but somehow this one pulls it off..

I always dreamed and fantasized about falling for a hood like Sheik. "Nice" girls who grew up in the 1960's and were in the honor society were supposed to achieve the questionable goal of marrying a nice boy who would earn well and buy us a nice house in the suburbs, where we would presumably have some nice children...

And this, in a word, is what lends "Baby, It's You" its poignancy. High school is the one place, the last place, in which the unlikely and all-too-temporary coupling of a female "achiever" bound for suburban "niceness" and the magnetic male "underachiever" bound for urban "unniceness" can occur. Sheik/Albert Capadilupo ("Is he an Arab?" "No, Italian.") embodies all the qualities that leader-type Jill Rosen has been told time and time again do not make a good, suitable husband or match or date: he disdains academic achievement, he is "good" with his hands, he drives fast, he has underworld connections, he knows how to kiss..and possibly how to do other things. Jill Rosen, in turn, has dreamy eyes, answers questions in class, gets good grades, and has ambitions of being something very much more than a "wife," qualities which fascinate and often infuriate Sheikh.

In the course of the movie, the on-again, off-again romance between them -which features all the quirkiness and unpredictability of most high-school romances, and then some- lights up, then sputters, then heats up again. My favorite movie scene of all time takes place when a sleepless maniacal Sheik barrels up US Route 1 from Miami in a series of stolen cars, then collars numerous shocked and amazed debutante types in the Student Center in order to locate Jill.

Free of sci-fi special effects or surrealistic flashbacks, this is a movie for people who love and believe in "romance" in the truest sense of the word - that one brief "Camelot"-like time when two people from different backgrounds and even worlds light up the world for each other, even though they sense it will end all too soon.

After finally getting a VHS copy of this film, I find it is ranked right up there with my all-time favorites. Perhaps you had to have lived in that time, or attended a big-city high school or just be an incurable romantic to relate.

Even though this film is 23 years old, the emotions, settings and tragedies of young, rudder-less love are universal and timeless. Is there any among we female viewers who has not either had or wanted to have a "Sheik" type pursue you? Dangerous, enigmatic and probably a big no-no, but extremely intriguing.

The film has many subtle nuances that younger audiences my not recognize since the scenes are not thrown at the viewer in quick-time, but the gentle, heart-wrenching moments with the main characters tend to stick in your mind. I will never listen to "Strangers in the Night" again without thinking of the two dance scenes and the emotions they evoke.

Spano and Arquette are outstanding as the two star-crossed leads and the acting is both understated and powerful in the same moment. When Jill tells Shiek she just doesn't love him in the dorm scene and he backs up and with a whipped look on his face asks, "why not?", his character is stripped of all pretenses.

Shop around for this video, as it is film making with heart like you don't find very often in the current film catalogs. Watch and remember and weep a little for what was and never could be.

Quite a few careers got started in this 1982 Paramount release. Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano made their starring debuts, John Sayles landed his first major directing job and the film also features small parts by future stars Robert Downey Jr., Tracy Pollan and Matthew Modine. Set in 1965, a fine period soundtrack helps to propel this story of two mismatched teenagers (Arquette, Spano) whose love affair stems a lot of controversy within their community. The film is OK but time has not served it entirely well as sometimes it seems dated and it still suffers from being as obscure as it was when it was originally released.