Life John Hughes first teen movie, Sixteen Candles charts the disastrous sixteenth birthday of Samantha Baker (Ringwald in one of her best performances). Her spoilt older sister is getting married, and getting all of the attention; her younger brother seems to live his life just to get up her nose; her overbearing grandparents won't leave he alone; and worst of all, she has a crush on a senior who is stepping out with the prom queen. Although Hughes had yet to master the comic genius shown in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, we find here a test bed for all of the motifs found in later movies: teenage angst mixed with slapstick comedy; fantastic use of music; cultural stereotyping (here we meet a 'Crazy Chinaman' called ... Long Duck Dawn); and a stunning Anthony Michael Hall who offers us The Geek, a thoroughly despicable creature with a heart of gold who gets to fulfill the one great wish of every teenage boy. So not Citizen Kane, but worth seeing for a confusingly young John Cusack being thoroughly upstaged.
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