SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL added chuckles, smiles and heart to 1987’s healthy slate of comedies (there were at least fifteen good ones); this expertly cast and acted entry, directed by Howard Deutch not only drew good reviews and decent box office but mirrored its title for the director, 36, who fell for one of his stars, Lea Thompson, 26: they married in 1989: as of 2026, 37 years and counting.

“Check it out. This girl is popular, she’s beautiful…and obviously in the middle of some emotional shootout to consent to date the human tater tot. What did you do to her, Keith? Threaten her life?”

L.A. metro, around San Pedro. Social hierarchy in high school picks winners and losers with the disdain for feelings similar to what the military dubs ‘collateral damage.’ As ‘Keith Nelson’ (Eric Stoltz) relates “Well, I like art, I work in a gas station, my best friend is a tomboy. These things don’t fly too well in the American high school.” His longtime friend is ‘Watts’ (Mary Stuart Masterson), who has a miserable home life, finding some solace in playing drums and kidding/helping Keith. He develops a hopeless crush on sexy ‘Amanda Jones’ (Thompson) who runs with the cool crowd and goes with ‘Hardy Jenns’ (Craig Sheffer), a spoiled jerk from a wealthy family. Keith bravely/naively determines to make a play for Amanda despite Watts warning him “Don’t go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs.”

John Hughes wrote the script: there’s plenty of sly one-liner humor but the underlying drama has a believable edge. This was last to graduate in Hughes three year High School sweep, preceded by Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. This one made the smallest splash at the box office, 59th place in ’87, but $18,600,000 was enough to cancel out the cost factors. His fans have their faves in the six-pack; it’s easy to see why this charmer would keep a coterie of loyalists. Considering how the players and their characters are groove-fit it’s an example of kismet coming out of chaos, as the production was tense with control issues over what tone the telling would settle on. The big gun was Hughes; as writer, producer and multiple home run slammer his was the clout to count. Tiffed at Deutch (they’d worked together on Pretty In Pink, of which this was a flipped rework), he dumped him, and Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl, Real Genius) stepped in to direct. Then Hughes unceremoniously let her go, along with her casting picks for Amanda and Hardy (Kim Delaney and Kyle McLachlan) and rehired Deutch. Stoltz, selected by Coolidge, tried to quit, and fought with Deutch. Not a happy set. Yet you wouldn’t know it by how smoothly the end results roll by. Stoltz skillfully underplays, Thompson’s character arc is convincingly handled and there are gleaming nuggets in the supporting cast: John Ashton as Keith’s dad, Elias Koteas as a punk with some reserves of decency and the great family interaction from Maddie Corman as Keith’s pestering sister ‘Laura’ (also in high school) and Candice Cameron Bure as with-it kiddie sis ‘Cindy’. But top honors go to Masterson, 21, who is a tuning fork of suppressed hope and hurt as Watts, a diamond tucked in a dresser drawer in the attic, waiting to be discovered.

“I’m here to kick your ass, and you know it, and everybody here knows it, and above all, you deserve it. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that this party is about to become a historical fact.”

Good score from Stephen Hague and John Musser mixes in hot licks from Pete Shelley (“Do Anything”), Flesh for Lulu (“I Go Crazy”) and March Violets (“Miss Amanda Jones”). 95 minutes, with Molly Hagan, Scott Coffey, Jane Elliot, Lee Garlington, Laura Leigh Hughes, Chynna Phillips and Carmine Caridi.