Amanda Peterson in Can't Buy Me Love (1987)
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Can’t Buy Me Love is one of the few non-John-Hughes teenage comedies made in the mid/late 1980’s that are actually pretty good (with the best of the bunch being Rob Reiner’s The Sure Thing). It was directed by Steve Rash (whose only other noteworthy effort to date is the Academy Award winning Buddy Holly Story) and stars first-time leading man Patrick Dempsey (Sweet Home Alabama) as well as the lovely Amanda Peterson (Explorers) as his love interest. Furthermore you should look out for Courtney Gains (Colors), Seth Green (Austin Powers), Ami Dolenz (Rescue Me), Max Perlich (Beautiful Girls), and actor-turned-director Dennis Dugan (Saving Silverman) in early performances. I found it particularly interesting to know that Seth Green at some point in his life actually looked more like a human being than a rat…
Ronald (Dempsey) is a smart and ambitious high school kid who has earned quite a lot of money mowing lawns. Nevertheless Ronald belongs to the omnipresent group of nerds. In order to break out of this scheme and get into the the “in-crowd,” Ronald comes up with a plan that involves the girl of his dreams: beautiful head cheerleader Cindy (Peterson). He offers her $1,000 to pose as his girlfriend for a month. Skeptical yet desparate for money, Cindy reluctantly agrees. Much to her surprise, everything turns out fine and soon Ronald is one of the most popular kids in town. The only problem is that while enjoying his newfound popularity Ronald overlooks two things: his former “geek” friends and the fact that Cindy is actually starting to like him.
Can’t Buy Me Love’s major flaw is that its well-meant message about “being yourself” is handled way too heavily (particularly towards the finale) with the low point being a scene in which Ronald saves his former best friend from a nasty beating. Maybe I’m just too old for this stuff, but can a movie be more manipulative?
The film starts out promisingly enough with an interesting plot outline and two well-cast leads. The young Patrick Dempsey is charming as Ronald, though he could have come off a bit more sympathetic prior to his transformation. I will never be able to grasp why Dempsey won a Young Artist Award as best young actor in a motion picture while Amanda Peterson’s far superior work ended up being only nominated in the female category (she lost to Maia Brewton in Aventures in Babysitting). Amanda Peterson and the Young Artist Awards are quite an interesting sidebar, in that she had to be nominated four times before finally being able to snag one of the prizes in 1988 for the TV series A Year in the Life. Sadly the lovely blonde ended her career for unknown reasons after the 1995 adventure flick Windrunner at the tender age of twenty-four. Wherever you are Mandy, we miss you…
Nudity Report: None, though Amanda Peterson looks lovely throughout the flick and provides various amounts of cleavage--including a couple of underwear- and bikini-clad shots. Furthermore some of the other girls can also be seen in their underwear during a dressing room scene. Not much but what do you expect from a flick that’s rated PG-13?
Critics: IMDB: 6.1 out of 10 (1979 votes). Roger Ebert: 0.5/4 (not sure which movie he saw…). Leonard Maltin: 2.5/4. Amazon Customers: 4/5. Udo: 2.5/4. A thoroughly enjoyable little film that is worn down by an increasing amount of clichés towards the end.
Box Office: It did well and grossed more than $30 million in the US alone.
DVD: Stay away from the Disney DVD released on August 13th 2002!!! The only apect ratio it offers is 1.33:1 (Fullscreen) while the so-called “special features” consist of a trailer--which isn’t even the one for this movie. What a tease!
Written by: Udo Baumann, Skin Central Germany