p e n g u i n d e v i l

I know, we’ve all seen Say Anything so many times that there isn’t really any reason to comment on it. But I will anyway. Though to make it interesting, this time (admittedly the first in many, many years since I’ve watched it) we watched it with the Commentary (from Crowe, Cusack and Skye). it was only the third DVD I’ve watched the commentary on (the other two being This is Spinal Tap and Roger Ebert’s great commentary track on Dark City), and I thought it was alright, it felt very natural, like they really did enjoy making this movie and it is certainly worth sitting through if you are a fan of this movie, though I started to wonder how many times Skye was going to mention that if they hadn’t both been romantically attached during filming that they probably would have become so.

To me, this is the film that straddles the line between Cusack’s dorky teen comedies of the 1980’s (The Sure Thing, Better Off Dead) and his more mature roles of the 1990’s (The Grifters at least, though his delightful portrayal of Caspar the Food Pirate kind of invalidates that theory). Say Anything falls in here as a very serious comedy. Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut is one of those great films that is very funny, but not with the usual “cheap jokes a way as to make you laugh all the time” style, and is also very serious but not in a way that you feel like they are trying to be serious. The movie really just has a natural flow between ups and downs, all gravitating around John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler, who is also generally both up and down. It is the story of a very individual fellow, a dorky and very charmingly serious kickboxer who falls for a girl that most would considered out of his league and pursues her until, well maybe not the ends of the earth, but the ends of the movie at least. The love interest is, of course, Ione Skye, who portrays an uncomfortable “brainy beauty” just about as well as you could expect her too. She has an interesting role as she isn’t so much a major character as she is the pivot between John Cusack and John Mahoney’s great and touching portrayal of her obsessive and overly-protective father. There are many great and now iconic scenes (though I’ve never found the “In your eyes” scene to be that great) and everything really does work together well.





Say Anything also features a fun turn by Eric Stolz, a great, scene stealing role for Lili Taylor as Lloyd’s best friend Corey (certainly one of the key roles in the film, and most entertaining with her now infamous obsession with her ex-boyfriend Joe) and a very early appearance of Jeremy Piven.