underrated rom-coms

At this year’s Oscars, Daphne Zuniga and John Cusack were standing together to pay honor to Rob Reiner for his unforgettable but unappreciated second film, The Sure Thing (1985).

The main character, Gib (John Cusack), immediately became the romantic ideal of this writer as an eleven-year-old, a position he held for decades.

My sisters and I — entranced watching Gib shotgun a beer — all tried the maneuver with soda on our porch, with potentially catastrophic effects on the cement and on our esophagi. Before my ten-year high school reunion, I insisted a friend watch the film as part of our preparatory movie marathon, along with School Ties and other nostalgic faves.

“Why have I never heard of this?” she said afterward.

Exactly.

I know there could be many reasons for its lack of popularity: its distribution, a poorly chosen clip for its marketing campaign, bad timing. But for me, the culprit has always been that boom box, held aloft in the iconic scene from Say Anything four years later. If it weren’t for that image and the earworm song playing along with it, maybe the rest of you would stop talking about that lame Lloyd Dobler and instead celebrate his forerunner: Walter “Gib” Gibson.

Charming, hilarious, endearing Gib, who has a lot more going on than Lloyd, whose lapdog approach verges on pathetic.

Say Anything has always exasperated me. Part of it is my allegiance to Gib. Part of it is my conviction that Lloyd’s obsession is — at best — annoying. But perhaps the worst thing about that film is my confusion over its appeal, as if my peers had said, “Yeah, Alec Baldwin’s acting is okay in Glengarry Glen Ross, but have you seen William Baldwin in Sliver?”

For me, Say Anything would be a complete wash without Lloyd’s lovelorn best friend (Lili Taylor) and the song “In Your Eyes.” Cusack’s charm is considerable, but it’s not enough to gild that turkey of a character.

But of course, to convince you, I need to start where I did: with The Sure Thing, which thanks to Peter Gabriel, too few of you have seen. Once I take you through its many appeals, maybe you’ll take a second look at Lloyd and Gib.

Opening Scenes

Gib’s hopelessness at picking up women in high school is immediately established in The Sure Thing. Was there ever a worse pickup line than “Consider outer space?” Perhaps later, when Gib comes up with “Did you know that Nietzsche died of syphilis?”

We also quickly see that his bro-type friend, Lance (Anthony Edwards), is nothing like him. Gib may not be as sure of himself as Lance, but he’s witty. Gib feels despondent about striking out with high school girls, so Lance assures him that these girls will magically transform once they get to college. Gib, with a wry expression and shake of the head, says, “I’m gonna miss you, Lance.”

Soon Lance will leave for UCLA, while Gib will depart for a small Northeastern college. Unfortunately for Gib, his poor luck with women will continue, especially when he tries to pick up his classmate Alison, a stuffy academic type (Daphne Zuniga, pre-Melrose Place). He asks her to tutor him in English to woo her. It’s not a bad ploy. I enjoyed his dramatic depiction of his fast-food future if he doesn’t pass the class. But he soon pisses her off, making her an enemy instead. So, when Lance gives him an appealing prospect — come see me at Christmas and I’ll get you laid — Gib’s discovery that Alison will be accompanying him on the trip is not a happy moment.

So here we are, a road trip with two people who dislike one another, a rom-com standard since It Happened One Night. Hijinks are about to ensue, which will begin with the couple offering to drive them, played by Lisa Jane Persky and Tim Robbins. The couple wants to spend the cross-country hours singing showtunes. Witness Cusack’s hilariously horrified expression when this plan begins to be executed. He is every teenager everywhere. This guy is gonna be a star.

Believability

One thing I love about 80s films is that they often feature teens who are low on funds instead of focusing on the privileged. (In fact, when rich characters are included, they are often villains.) Neither the hero nor the heroine of The Sure Thing can afford airfare, so they go to the ride board (remember those?) Instead of dressing in fashionable or skimpy attire, the two are wearing unsexy (and in Gib’s case, ill-advised) outfits. Gib’s immature sleepwear looks like he’s worn it since he was fourteen. Neither can afford much to eat; we witness him snacking on pork rinds and snowballs. Alison is so worried about her parents’ rules she misses what constitutes an “emergency” that would enable her to use their credit card. These leads have always seemed like people I know, not the glamorous, unconvincing teens in so many movies I’ve seen since.

Likeability of the Characters

Both Gib and Alison are believably awkward with each other as their attraction grows. The characters’ combination of bravado and insecurity is exactly what it’s like to be that age.

Just a few years after Porky’s celebration of objectifying women, Gib’s character is sensitive in unexpected ways. Sure, he’s stereotypically masculine too. (Note when he shares his distaste for the name Elliot, the kind of guy, he says, who “eats paste,” which he compares to the name Nick, the “kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car.”) Yet he checks on Alison after a scary encounter and is careful to respect her boundaries during their trip, making sure not to “try anything” she doesn’t want.

Alison, meanwhile, is afraid she’s not cool. She takes notes on every word the professor speaks in her English class, then can’t get past the professor’s jibe that she needs to live more adventurously. That’s why she overreacts when Gib teases her for being “repressed.” For me, a nerdy girl growing up in the 80s, Alison was pretty darn familiar. Gib was that charming combination of confident and sensitive that isn’t easy to find, especially in someone as attractive as Cusack. As a stressed-out freshman in college, I sought a (comparatively) relaxed boyfriend like Gib, so much so that I started dating the first person I met with terrible posture.

The film has also had some funny and enduring effects on my habits. Alison’s habit of nervously checking around a motel room for anything left behind has haunted me — and has resulted in extra care before departures — in every place I’ve stayed since.

The Humor of the Leads

As a kid, my favorite scene was Gib’s dramatic encounter with a sketchy truck driver. He’s just having so much fun freaking the guy out.

I’ve always loved the way Cusack plays Gib’s insecurity, as when he goes to a bar to escape when Alison is talking to her boyfriend on the phone. Even better is how he tries to impress her by showing off his supposed juggling skills when he returns.

Gib has so many good lines. My favorites are his defense of the nutritional value of pork rinds and when he shares the random questions running through his head: “Does God exist? Who invented liquid soap and why?”

Alison’s failure when she tries to shotgun a beer cracks me up. I also smile at Zuniga’s goofy delivery of “I’m the kind of gal who likes to live on the edge,” which says very clearly that she is anything but.

The Joys of the Minor Characters

Like Better Off Dead, another great Cusack flick, this film is full of funny minor characters.

The singing couple is great, with impressive performances from both actors. I hadn’t heard any of these rusty, awful tunes before, and I laugh aloud when the two become fearful of these teens they’re transporting and try to bar them from returning to the car, screaming, “Lock the doors!” It gets me every time.

I love the roommate who wants his almost certainly fictional sexual encounter to be published in Playboy.

Then there’s the semi driver who helps Gib get his “sure thing” (i.e., get laid without strings) because “my whole life, I never had a sure thing.”

Every single character in the dive bar where Gib goes to avoid Alison’s talk with her boyfriend is hilarious: The deadpan bartender, who looks at Gib’s fake ID and says, “Okay, Dr. Levinson, what’ll it be?” The fed-up waitress with her Flo of Mel’s Diner hair and her disdainful glances at her clientele. The charming customers who cheer up Gib with their Christmas carols and their uncertainty of whether they are “goodlooking” men. I can’t decide which I like more: the guy asking the waitress for critiques on his self-discipline or the cowboy, who tells his companions, “I was in Paris once with my wife. Boy, am I glad she’s dead.”

For those of us who relish funny encounters, The Sure Thing has always felt aspirational as well as entertaining.

The Romance

Zuniga doesn’t have Cusack’s talent, but she was very good in this film. Alison’s uncertainty and awkwardness come through in Zuniga’s voice, posture, and expressions.

Cusack is amazing in it: by turns sarcastic, tender, playful, and wistful. Still a teen when this film was produced, he is a far better comedic actor in this, his first lead role, than actors twice his age.

He and Zuniga have great chemistry, and their growth as characters in the movie is sweet and believable. Gib grows up in Alison’s company, and she learns to relax and act more her age (i.e., not 85). What I love is that these are incremental growths: the characters still are fundamentally who they always were.

Of course, the “sure thing” (Nicolette Sheridan) isn’t much of a character, nor is Alison’s boyfriend. But we get more humorous encounters with Lance (Edwards) in the final scenes, including what he did to set up this situation for his friend.

I won’t reveal the end. If it’s a little cheesy, that sentimentality is earned, and Cusack and Zuniga sell it.

The Comparison

Before I left for my junior year in England in the mid-1990s, I discussed with a friend the horror of a partner being with you with nothing to do. He nodded; he felt the same. The image of Lloyd, sitting in Diane’s (Ione Skye’s) dorm room playing video games and practicing kickboxing, the sport “of the future,” while she tries to enjoy her fellowship was one of the reasons that my own boyfriend and I agreed that long distance was a good alternative for us.

I shivered at these lines from Say Anything, thinking of Lloyd glomming onto her:

Diane’s dad: “What are your plans for the future?”

Lloyed: “Spend as much time as possible with Diane before she leaves.”

Sure, Lloyd looks good compared to Diane’s criminal father. But that’s not a high bar. Being adrift at his age isn’t a bad sign; it’s even endearing. But she is driven and has a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity he’s about to derail. Clingy is not a good look, even on John Cusack.

And Diane, oh Diane. At points Skye’s acting is so stilted I found it difficult to watch, so it was hard to feel for her character. While Diane is attracted to Lloyd, it felt like she was just replacing her dad with another guy to lean on.

I laughed a few times during Say Anything, mainly at Lili Taylor’s funny delivery and descriptions of her ex. Compare that to The Sure Thing. The last time I saw it, it had been over a decade, and I still remembered so many scenes and lines with affection. And even though I knew everything coming, I laughed countless times.

When Rob Reiner died, I hoped there would be a reappraisal of this underappreciated comedic gem he’d directed, which was well-reviewed when it first came out. Roger Ebert had given it three and a half out of four stars and called it a “small miracle.”

Since Say Anything was not one of Reiner’s films, I thought The Sure Thing would finally get the due it had never been granted. Instead, the movie became a footnote in Reiner’s obituary, mentioned as if it were a regrettable blip between This Is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me. What a shame.

Hopefully, Zuniga and Cusack standing together to honor Reiner (still adorable together) will be a reminder to those who love it and a wake-up call to those who have never seen it.

Even if you like Say Anything, you should watch Cusack’s first starring role to witness the charisma that would turn him into a heartthrob and beloved comedy icon. There’s a dusting of that charm in Say Anything, but if you want to encounter its full wattage, spend a little time with Gib in The Sure Thing.