Sixteen Candles

There were probably ten truly landmark teen oriented movies in the 80's... John Hughes directed or wrote probably half of them. With "Sixteen Candles" he did both.

All of them featured heavily the three things that teenagers from anywhere have always worried about; being accepted, finding love and high school. A startling number were to feature a single actress who would undoubtedly come to personify the girl-next-door in the 80's... Molly Ringwald.

Sixteen Candles, was rich in these ingredients and more. It was John Hughes' debut directorial effort and the first of a long collaboration with Ringwald.

When Samantha Baker (Ringwald) wakes up on her sixteenth birthday to find that her family have forgotten her special day in favor of her sister's imminent marriage, she is more troubled by the lack of physical change this sacred day has brought.

Examining herself in the mirror, she ponders her lack of physical progress with frustration. As if all this wasn't enough, there will be many other excuses for Miss Ringwald to demonstrate the look of pouting disapproval, which she was famous for, before the day is over.

Soon she will reveal her crush on high school senior Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) in a "sex test" note being circulated in class, only to have it lost on its way back to the sender (little does she know that it's in Jake's hands within seconds).

Later, on the school bus going home, she will be stalked by Farmer Ted "The Geek", played famously by Anthony Michael Hall, desperate to make a conquest to prove to his geeky friends Bryce (John Cusack) and Cliff (Darren Harris) that he's a "dude".

Just as things couldn't get any worse, she returns home to find that her grandparents have come to stay for the wedding and as her brother Mike (Justin Henry) points out, she is relegated to "sofa city" for the duration.

Later that night she attends a "new faces" dance at school, complete with (now nostalgic) classic early 80's pop tracks to find that during a dance Jake looks at her and smiles...

She, of course, freaks out and later, whilst upset in the corridors, finds an unusually sympathetic ear in "The Geek", Farmer Ted.

Whilst the night rolls on for most, with many adventures and the inevitable 80's house party, Samantha returns home to a late night chat and apology from her father -for missing her special day- and the the specter of the wedding the next day.

While she sleeps, many things happen and the dawn tomorrow will bring a few suprises to those who were without love the night before...