Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

I watched this today and remember seeing it back years ago. My wife liked it. I thought it was good also. The movie is from 1987 so the styles of clothes and speech are different than today. But it captured some of that time period, and it was nice to remember how things were in some way.

The lead character is played by Patrick Dempsey, and his characters name is Ronald Miller. He is intent on going out with the daughter of one of his employers (he mows lawns for money) her name is Cindy Mancini she is played by Amanda Peterson. I’m not sure why she never had more of a career, but she kind of disappeared off the Hollywood radar.

Ronald devises a plan that will make him popular by trying to go out with the head cheerleader played by Amanda.This movie had a unique essence to it I thought, the school and socializing the teenagers did outside of school was very believable.

The main plot is Patrick’s character Ronald offers Cindy $1000.00 to go out with him. She then makes her choice and everything changes from there. She is in the popular crowd and her social circuit of friends. They are the “cool” students in the school. And he wants to be a part of it being able to hang out with them and impress them with his antics. He feels left out and is considered a nerd or geek by his peers so this is his inspiration or reason to do this. After his offer of the money, she pretends to like him and sup post to make him popular also.

There are a few recognizable faces from the supporting cast including: Courtney Gains as Kenneth Wurman his best friend, a very young Seth Green as Ronald’s brother, Dennis Dugan (now a director) as Ronald’s father, Max Perlich, Eric Bruskotter and Ami Dolenz also appear throughout the movie.

Back years ago, I was in Tucson, Arizona where this was filmed, and happened to stay not far from where they filmed part of the movie. I was at the high school there. It was kind of neat to see it. It is worth a rental if you are in the mood for a teenage romance film.

This movie really seems to capture a period of time during the later 1980′s, and it was interesting to reflect back to you’re own memories during high school no matter how good or bad they might have been. Two thumbs up for this as it had great character development and typical high school personalities to follow along until the conclusion of this teen angst film.