Sixteen Candles

Sixteen Candles is a 1984 Brat Pack film starring Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Michael Schoeffling. The film is oft credited with the beginning of the Brat Pack film movement.

Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald), a high schooler is has a terrible crush on Jake Ryan (Michael Shoeffling). On the eve of her conceited sister's wedding, her entire family forgets her sixteenth birthday. To make matters worse, Jake does not notice her. Further complicating the day, a foreign exchange student, Long Duck Dong, aka "The Donger", aka (Gedde Wantabe), who is noteable for such lines as "No more yanky my wanky" and "O Sexy Girlfriend", has come to live at the Bakers' house. Her crush has a girlfriend, Caroline (Havilland Morris), and a geek, "Farmer Ted", (Anthony Michael Hall in a scene-stealing performance) is haunting her. To win a set of floppy disks, "Farmer Ted" promised his friends that he would sleep with Samantha--but eventually, to make it seem like sexual activity took place, Samantha gives the geek her underwear. She also tells him about her crush. This prompts "Farmer Ted" to tell Jake, whom he also gives the underwear (after a peep show---which charged one dollar's admission.) Jake loans the geek his car, as well as his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Samantha's family apologizes about forgetting her birthday. After a wild night with the drunken Caroline, "Farmer Ted" and she wake up in a church parking lot--in each other's arms. In the end, Samantha gets Jake.

Influence

Long considered one of the greatest coming-of-age films ever made, Sixteen Candles launched the film careers of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, John Cusack, and Joan Cusack. The highly successful film also spawned a series of Brat Pack dramatic teen comedies.