Can't Buy Me Love (1987) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Steve Rash

Starring:  Patrick Dempsey, Amanda Peterson, Courtney Gains, Tina Caspary, Seth Green, Darcy De Moss, Dennis Dugan

Can't Buy Me Love goes about its drab business being an average 80's teen comedy until it boxes itself in with a plot in which there can't be any possible redemption for the leads.   We meet the gawky, nondescript Ronald Miller (Dempsey), who mows the five natural grass lawns left in Tucson and apparently makes pretty good scratch doing it.   He longs for the pretty, popular Cindy (Peterson), who goes to school with Ronald but only sees him as the guy who mows her lawn.   Ronald has his own group of less popular friends, but he really wants to be accepted by the "in" crowd.   So far, this sounds like the setup for any number of teen romantic comedies from any era.   

Then comes the plot:   Desperate Ronald offers Cindy $1,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month.  No kissing, touching, or foreplay, just an item in name only.   You see, Cindy spilled red wine all over her mother's outfit and needs the money to replace it before her mom finds out, so she accepts the offer.    This makes Cindy a borderline prostitute and Ronald a borderline john, which won't be good for either's reputation, assuming no one finds out.  Of course, we know people will find out, and that's where the movie winds up in a quandary from which it doesn't recover.   The way Can't Buy Me Love handles these developments is: it doesn't handle them.    

Ronald believes, correctly, that just having Cindy on his arm even briefly will allow his stock to rise in her friends' eyes.   Cindy's friends start fighting over him, he slicks back his hair, and becomes an insufferable jerk to even his real friends, and of course the deception will deservedly blow up in his face.    Cindy's friends are so mean and callous towards everyone that it makes you wonder why Cindy would even be friends with them.   They deserve to be the outcasts and don't have a collective brain, but in a movie like Can't Buy Me Love, they become the objects of infatuation and longing.   

Cindy is far too nice to be hanging out with such loathsome souls, and she deserves better than to be dating Ronald or even her real boyfriend, with whom she was conveniently broken up so Ronald could make his move.   Ronald goes from "totally geek to totally chic" as one of Cindy's friends eloquently puts it, and after the gig is up, from "totally chic to totally geek".   He changes personalities so fast that he could give himself whiplash.   Patrick Dempsey tries to keep up, but the screenplay asks too much of him.   Peterson has a sweet way about her that makes us wish she was in a better movie.  

When I first saw Can't Buy Me Love in 1987, I was far too young to understand the implications of the plot.   The issues are tidied up far too neatly and quickly in the movie, and back then I suppose I was happy for everyone.   However, viewing it again after many years, Can't Buy Me Love sidesteps too many important issues and questions to be enjoyed even on the level of dopey teen comedy.