Originally premiered at Mann's Chinese Theatre on January 29, 1986, and was released theatrically in the United States on February 28, 1986 by Paramount Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Ringwald's performance, and grossed $40.5 million against a $9 million budge.
Pretty in Pink was a 1986 American teen romantic comedy-drama film about love and social cliques in American high schools in the 1980s. The film stars Molly Ringwald, alongside Harry Dean Stanton, Jon Cryer, Annie Potts, James Spader, and Andrew McCarthy. A cult classic of the 1980s an it was commonly identified as a "Brat Pack" film. The film followed high school senior Andie Walsh (Ringwald), and her relationships with her love interest Blane McDonnagh (McCarthy), her best friend Philip F. "Duckie" Dale (Cryer), and her father (Stanton).
It was directed by Howard Deutch, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, and written by John Hughes, who also served as co-executive producer. The film was named after a song by the Psychedelic Furs, and the film's soundtrack, which has been acclaimed as "among the most brilliant in modern cinema", featured a re-recorded version of the song. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "If You Leave" became an international hit and charted at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 in May 1986.
Hughes explored the spectrum of teenage angst in the films he wrote or directed. Its 1985’s The Breakfast Club, explored the cliches of high school cliques and the misunderstandings that come with them. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a love letter to middle-class misbehavior in the pursuit of finding oneself. With Pretty in Pink we saw complex characters handle the weighty issues of love, family and class inequity. It shows us the ups and downs of romance between a lower-middle-class girl and an upper-class boy, as well as the jealousy and lovelorn feelings of a friend. The film leans into some tired tropes of high school life, sure, but it shows a refreshing female lead who is smart, confident, creative and has no desire to sell herself out to win the guy.
But the film isn’t just remembered for its story, either. It's also considered to have one of the most remarkable soundtracks in cinema, which includes bands such as Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, New Order, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark and Echo and the Bunnymen. And the outstanding Cryer's unforgettable lip-synching performance to Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness," which resulted in some injuries and the demise of some vintage shoes he wore. Meanwhile, the record store Andie works in, Trax, is an audiophile's wet dream with larger-than-life posters and seemingly endless aisles of vinyl.
In the early era of teen movies, from the 1950s to the '80s, plots centered on archetypes such as rebellion, greasers, jocks and nerds, often with lighter themes. The 1990s and early aughts saw a rise in comedies like Clueless and Mean Girls; supernatural stories like Twilight and the Harry Potter series; queer narratives in films like Love, Simon; and mental health struggles like those in The Edge of Seventeen. Today, teen-focused content includes increased realism with topics like suicide, addiction, sexual identity and the pressures of social media. And it’s not just white suburbia that’s represented.
The idea of what teen movies are has dramatically changed since their golden age in the 1980s.But high hormones, low confidence, love triangles, the woes of popularity and class divide remained until now on any teen drama. And that's the reason why Pretty in Pink remained iconical today, cause it certainly glamorizes this era of life that feels so heavy when we're in it, but so inconsequential as an adult. And even though we can predict these same old plot lines one after another, it's the proof, perhaps, that some stories like this won't die.
