Stacy and Brad Hamilton, Matt Damone, Mark Ratner, and Jeff Spicoli are teenagers starting another school year at Ridgmont High. This movie is about their crazy high school antics. Brad Hamilton is going into the year on top of the world, but a series of mistakes and misfortunes slowly tears everything away from him. Jeff Spicoli is a surfer-stoner dude who engages in a cat-and-mouse antagonistic game with his history teacher, Mr. Hand. 15-year-old Stacy is interested in guys and is eager, hurt, and underwhelmed by her first sexual experiences. This includes one with ticket-scalper/big talker Damone, who hooks up with Stacy despite knowing his friend Mark has a thing for her. Unfortunately, Stacy gets pregnant after her encounter with Matt and he is absentee as she goes to get an abortion. Still, by the end of the year, everyone makes up and/or finds a new contentment with their situation and Mark gets another date with Stacy.
I’ve said it before, but in general, I can’t stand movies about high school. Again, this probably says more about my own relationship with that period in my life than anything else. But this film was ok. It was fun. With the exception of the twist that Stacy was pregnant, it is otherwise super low stakes and sort of winks at the camera. It knows what it is and I respect it for that. Sean Penn’s Spicoli was a terrific character and I loved Judge Reinhold’s descent as Brad. The Stacy-Mark stuff was adorable. And the sexual stuff—including what I have to guess is one of the most famous nudity scenes in film history—must be gratuitous to some and realistic to others. I really enjoyed the “check comes due” layer of Stacy’s pregnancy and her very human, sibling-moment with Brad. But otherwise, I think I got to this film about a decade too late.