Can’t Buy Me Love is a 1987 romantic comedy that made a star of its lead as it follows the tried and true formula of zero to hero.
THE STORY: Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) is your basic teen dork, into science and astronomy and with a crush on the head cheerleader, Cindy (the late Amanda Peterson), who barely knows he exists. When she needs help out of a money jam, he offers up his hard-earned summer savings for a new telescope and ends up “renting” her for a month to help him look cool. Over time, naturally, things change between them and soon he’s become an all new man, not always for the best.
Director: Steve Rash
Writer: Michael Swerdlick
Stars: Patrick Dempsey, Amanda Peterson, Courtney Gains
THE RUNDOWN: Hopelessly shallow and with almost nothing but nostalgia holding it up, Can’t By Me Love is a by-the-books nerds taste the good life 80s fare that is superficial from the first frame, made watchable by it’s charming lead performances, who work hard to turn the silliness into something more. Every possible high school trope is in play and turned up to eleven, and as such, misses plenty of opportunities to make this count, keeping it safe and inside the lines. Because of all that, it’s actually a fun watch, simply to see how movies were made in a bygone era when we didn’t even know we had a lot of changes to make. This was Peterson’s big break, made when she was only 15-years-old.
If you’re a sucker for 80s nostalgia, this has loads of it, and while it’s hopelessly cheesy, it boasts some good turns from the convincing leads.
Following the playbook to the T, this film takes no chances, looking only to be basic filler in a genre already stuffed with the same bland taste.
THAT MOMENT: You know the drill. Ron is a nerd who needs only to take off his glasses and turn up his collar to be hot. But he doesn’t know that yet, nor does anyone else. He’s been crushing on his neighbor Cindy forever, but she’s the most popular and beautiful girl in school, with a football star boyfriend already at college. She doesn’t even know Ron’s name. What chance does he have?
Ronald hangs with the other geeks, a collection of good guys who don’t subscribe to the clique mentality, enjoying poker nights and yearbook club, forced to sit in the ‘loser’ section at lunch. However, Ron dreams of living on the other side, to just spend one day with the popular people, wondering what it’s like to be actually liked by people with influence.
As luck would have it, the stars are aligning, and one day, while at the mall where he’s just about to buy his dream telescope, he sees across the way Cindy at a dress store pleading with the owner to help her. Seems she secretly wore her mom’s suede dress to a party and one of the jocks splashed Ripple all over the front. If you know anything about suede, and don’t pretend you don’t, Ripple and cowhide simply don’t mix. Now what’s she going to do? In swoops Ron with a plan in hand … and a thousand bucks. He’ll buy her a new dress if she’ll be his friend for a month, giving him access to the cool kids so he can experience the good life. Desperate, she agrees, and so the next day, with a little attention to his hair, a jettisoning of his spectacles, and a minor adjustment to his sleeves … BAM … he’s in like Flynn. The nerd has entered the lion’s den.
Forced to be with him, Cindy soon begins to recognize the kindness in Ron, and not long after, she shares some of her more private aspirations, such as poetry and worries about her boyfriend. However, when Ron takes her on a special day trip, things really begin to fly off the rails. At an airplane graveyard, Ron shows her a bit of history, and then later, the Moon like she’s never seen before, and just like that, Cindy is into Ron. Seems money can buy love. But that wasn’t the deal, was it?
WHY IT MATTERS: Let’s get past the obvious girls-in-movies-exist-only-for-the-sake-of-boys tarpit that so many films get stuck in, as Can’t Buy Me Love is almost ickily mired up to its neck in. Every young woman in the movie is either hot after a football jock or pining for our new hero Ron (arguing in their skimpy undies in the locker room about bedding him), and in today’s progressive times, feels rightfully archaic. It’s refreshing to see how far we’ve come and equally distressing that this is where we once were.
Either way, back to the story. What we discover is that Ron is respectful of Cindy’s relationship and doesn’t actually seem interested in her physically, more liking the opportunities she offers, such as getting up and close to the jocks and her pretty girlfriends. These are the trademarks of the ‘real’ Ron, before be transforms, still thinking his encounter with the beautiful people will be brief.
Spending more time with her though, it becomes clear that she is attracted to the un-superficiality of Ron, his freedom to explore personal passions without ridicule, and desire to better himself. So comfortable with him, she shares her love of poetry, something no one knows about, and it touches him, swearing he will cherish this vulnerability.
This prompts him to take her to a special place, their ‘last date’, a gigantic airplane graveyard just outside of town, where they hop the unguarded fence and spend the day exploring the husks of old battle planes. He talks of real history and how the generation of their grandparents created things to last, a subtle jab at the throwaway generation of their modern times.
They end up in the shell of a dilapidated helicopter using a makeshift telescope (that in NO WAY would get them views of the Lunar surface as shown) to look at the Moon, and Cindy begins to see things in a new light, realizing that she actually has feelings for Ron (duh!), that he is a ‘real’ good guy. That it’s the last date seems to have slipped her mind, but for Ron … not so much. He’s just about to star on a whole new stage and is blinded by the possibilities to see what’s already right in front of him. Not cool, Ron. Not cool.
I like how the movie steps outside its safety zone here, taking a breather from the predictable beats in letting Ron show more of his true colors, just on the cusp of a metamorphosis that will get him what he wants … with all the consequences of such. There is a wonderful, playful charm and connection between Ron and Cindy and the best thing that director Steve Rash does here is not let them have sex, something most teen romps jump right into, instead keeping this entirely about their characters. What’s amazing is how ripe the situation is for such a thing, and yet, for several minutes, it’s just these two high schoolers exploring a few old planes, and their feelings.
What’s better is how this moment comes ’round again later in the film when Ron is at the zenith of his popularity, with the jocks his best buds and every girl in school panting for a chance in the back seat. Cindy and he have sort of fallen apart, their contractual obligations complete, yet she knows whomever this new Ron is, is not the Ron he really wants to be. She approaches him at his locker and tells of a new poem and a hope to revisit the airplane graveyard, though Ron’s reply is … well, I’ll leave it up to you to see.
Can’t Buy My Love is a silly movie, stuck in the clichés of the 80s teen romcom cycle, with a checklist of stereotypes and situations we’ve seen dozens of times before. What’s worse, it’s too tender to be raunchy – there’s no nudity and aside from a short Halloween hazing, hardly any bad behavior – and too serious to be a good social commentary. Still, as a time capsule of the times, and a couple of good lead performances, this is a well worth sitting through, with a scene in an airplane graveyard one to keep an eye out for. It’s a great movie moment.