MovieChat Forums > Say Anything... (1989) Discussion > Very Disappointing.

Very Disappointing.

posted 17 years ago by dogma66605
75 replies | jump to latest

I was horribly disappointed by this movie. It just seemed like nothing was happening for a reason. Nothing blended. Nothing meshed.

There's this boy. He wants to go out with this girl he doesn't know and seems to already be hopelessly in love with. He takes her out to a party. He is unrealistically only friends with these two girls who he has nothing in common with. One of them had sex with a guy and writes songs about it and then confronts him but what happened is never explained and the whole scene is unnecessary. But that doesn't matter because they never touch on it again. Then Lloyd and Diane go on about two more dates. Then fall madly in love for some reason and have sex. She tells her dad and he doesn't care. She walks into her house at 8 in the morning and he doesn't care. She's super smart and "ONLY HAS 16 weeks before she leaves" to go to England for her scholarship. Why is she so hesitant to start hanging out with a guy she just met? Does she really think from that point that seeing him will make her have to commit for more than four months? 16 months is a long time. They fall in love way too fast and I don't buy it at all. And it's supposed to be some destined undying love. But it's just a snoozefest. Scene after scene of meaningless irrelevance. How dare Roger Ebert say in his review that they must've studied teenagers when writing this film. The two main teenagers seem to know a whole lot more about love than the average kid and the other secondary teenagers are mindless stereotypes. The party scene was embarrassing. I'm sorry about that mindless rant, but that movie just seemed equally mindless. It had no aim. No direction. I'm not saying it was badly written... just badly put together.

The response to this movie confuses me so much. It's a love story with no reason behind the love and no depth behind the story. It's just an unrealistic look into the love lives of some really unrealistic kids. I love movies that capture the audience, make them live through the characters. I couldn't relate to anything in this movie and I couldn't understand while watching it HOW I was supposed to feel what any of the characters were feeling when no reason was ever given to show WHY they felt that way. Isn't this movie considered "overlooked" or something? I can see why a lot of people overlooked it.

Never has a movie was such brilliant reviews disappointed me so much. What a godawful pretentious mess.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] coffeemann 10 years ago

just curious man.. how old are you?

you might not like it for the reason you are not from that generation.
for us who were high school students when this film came out we could relate to because it was our time. our people, and our movies were simple back then too.
john Hughes films , and then this film from crowe. so for us, it was a great movie because it captured the time, the struggles, the everyday life.
sure looking back now as a kid who is in high school you might think,,. wow that's lame.. but 25 years ago.. it made sense..

[–] remembervhs 10 years ago

the dialogue in the movie is rather good, especially john cusack's ramblings.

i dont know if the story is more or less unrealistic than similar movies, nor is that important to me.

[–] daughterofolaf 10 years ago

The OP was apparently never a teenager. It's fine if you didn't like the movie but your comments about not buying them falling in love because it's an unrealistic portrayal of teens and love and all that is simply ridiculous. This is one of the more realistic portrayals of teen love I have seen. Since when do teenagers act like adults and always think rationally? Good for you if you are and have always been above human nature and hormones but you're clearly the minority and, sadly, don't seem to know much about how people act.

It wasn't me who was murdered, was it?

[–] Robbmonster 8 years ago

A couple of things...

1) Please include 'spoiler alert' in your heading. It takes about 5 seconds and is a common courtesy. And don't bother with the 'why would people come to a forum for a movie they haven't seen?' That rubbish don't float anymore.

2) In what way is Say Anything 'pretentious'? The version I saw had nothing pretentious about it. Pretentious is one of my least favourite words to see when reading a review. It's almost as bad as 'manipulative'.

3) You aren't supposed to 'understand' how you feel about characters. You are meant to feel how you feel about them.

Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

[–] chas437 8 years ago

Yes, and this is a wonderful film. It represents Crowe and Cusack's finest work, IMO.

What's shallow are the negative posts on this thread. There was never any intention to have conflict between these characters. Its a coming of age thing, and in many ways the coming of age of a generation.

Easily a top-10 film for the decade of the 80s.