Sixteen Candles
A young girl’s “sweet sixteenth” birthday becomes anything but special as she suffers from every embarrassment possible.
- Director: John Hughes
- Genre:Comedy / Drama / Romance
- Runtime:93 minutes
Cast
Molly Ringwald : Samantha Baker
Justin Henry : Mike Baker
Michael Schoeffling : Jake Ryan
Haviland Morris : Caroline Mulford
Gedde Watanabe : Long Duk Dong
Awkward high school sophomore Samantha “Sam” Baker (Molly Ringwald) struggles to get through the day of her sixteenth birthday, which her entire family forgets because her older sister, Ginny (Blanche Baker), is getting married the next day. She is also plagued by her ongoing infatuation with the very popular and very attractive senior, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Her day at school fares no better when she finds out that her completed “sex quiz,” which she surreptitiously slipped to her friend, never reached her (and, unbeknownst to either of them, was picked up by Jake Ryan himself). Sam panics as the quiz contains personal information, including the fact that she is a virgin and is saving herself for Jake.
She has a whole new set of problems when she arrives home to find that both sets of grandparents are staying at the Baker home for the duration of the wedding visit. On top of it all, one set of grandparents brings along bizarre foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe). Sam’s grandparents force her to take him along to her school dance that night and, to Sam’s amazement, it takes “The Donger” only five hours to find an unlikely girlfriend — the tallish, large-breasted jock, Marlene, promptly nicknamed “Lumberjack.” After some ensuing madness with everyone involved, Sam’s family eventually makes up before the wedding and apologizes for forgetting her birthday.
A running subplot involves a geeky freshman (Anthony Michael Hall) who continually (and unsuccessfully) tries to bed his love interest, Sam, to satisfy a bet with his friends. The character is referred to on several occasions in the movie as either “Ted” or “Farmer Ted”, but he is credited solely as “the Geek.”
In the auto-shop room during the dance, Sam and Ted begin talking and Sam confesses her love for Jake. Upon hearing this, he tells her that Jake had been asking about her at the dance, and they agree that Sam should just go and talk to him. As she’s leaving, he reveals the wager to Sam, who, in her excited state, agrees to loan him her underwear to help him win a dozen floppy disks. Read more
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