Masterson never did turn into a conventional leading lady, but she did a lot of fine work. I don’t know whether she’ll turn into a conventional leading lady-she looks too short and small-featured for that, somehow-but it’s a career worth following, and Some Kind of Wonderful is a painless place to start.įirst published in the Herald, February 1987 When she sits on the hood of a car, shivering with anger and frustration and hurt over Stoltz’ success with Thompson, I get the distinct sense that a mature actress is being born. She has a way of swallowing the big emotional moments, only just letting them peek through, that feels utterly honest. Masterson seems to have exceptional range herself. (She’s got the spiciest dialogue, too.) She was previously good as Sean Penn’s girlfriend in the little-seen At Close Range. You’re cool,” she sputters, barely keeping her awakened hormones in check.Īll the actors are good to watch, but Mary Stuart Masterson steals the show. The “pretend” kiss between Masterson and Stoltz, held just a moment longer than necessary, has her beating a hurried retreat. Holding up a drawing of a skull with eyes, the hulk suggests, with disarmingly cheery innocence, “That’s what my girlfriend would look like without skin.”Īnd there’s a nice version of the beginning-to-see-the-light scene, when Masterson helps Stoltz prep for a possible kiss with Thompson, by acting the role of the latter. Stoltz, trapped in detention, sketches in his notebook, which inspires the punked-out lunk across the aisle to respond with some art of his own. But Hughes’ dialogue and the agility of the actors is enough to distract from the blueprint nature of the thing.Īnd there are a couple of scenes that take off. And Hughes is starting to run out of ideas for this milieu the villains, for instance, are stock, without any memorable traits. The film isn’t five minutes old before we know that Stoltz will have to work through his crush on Thompson in order to discover his true affection for Masterson. His dream is the school’s most popular girl (Lea Thompson, recovering prettily from Howard the Duck), but she, of course, is hooked with the school’s swaggering jock (Craig Sheffer, perfectly embodying every bully who ever drove you nuts).
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His confidante is a tomboy drummer (Mary Stuart Masterson), with whom he maintains a close but unromantic friendship. The misfit in this case is a sensitive lad, a hopeful artist (Eric Stoltz, out from under his Mask makeup), basically an okay guy but shy enough for his sister to refer to him as “the human Tater-Tot.”
![some kind of wonderful kiss some kind of wonderful kiss](https://www.looper.com/img/gallery/most-memorable-first-kisses-in-cinematic-history/l-intro-1609169198.jpg)
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Hughes would seem to be repeating himself here, by pulling the sex-switch on this Pretty in Pink script and hiring the same director, Howard Deutch.īy rights, all of that should make Some Kind of Wonderful a craven commercial effort, designed to repeat the success of Pretty in Pink.
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Isn’t this tale of a misfit student infatuated with the prettiest girl in school while his true love waits on the sidelines just a gender-reversal of last year’s Pretty in Pink? And hasn’t the high-school well run dry yet for the prolific producer John Hughes, the teen-film potentate ( The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)? There’s no way Some Kind of Wonderful should work.