Year:
1985
Studio:
Metro Goldwyn Mayer/Orion Pictures
Feature:
3/5
DVD:
0/5
Secret Admirer is
a more or less typical teen romantic comedy of the 1980's. C Thomas
Howell plays 16-year old Michael Ryan who has a crush on school beauty
Deborah Anne Fimple (Kelly Preston). Lori Loughlin plays Toni,
Michael's best female friend who is secretly in love with him.
On the last day of the school year, Toni writes Michael an anonymous
love letter. For some reason Michael thinks it's from Deborah so he
write an anonymous letter back, using Toni as the go-between. Toni
reads Michael's letter and, disgusted with his writing style, writes a
replacement letter. Deborah falls for it and soon she and Michael are
dating.
There is a whole side-show complication when Michael's and Deborah's
parents find their letters and think it's about their spouses.
Michael's dad George (Cliff De Young) thinks it's a letter from
Deborah's mom Elizabeth (Leigh Taylor-Young). Meanwhile George's wife
Connie (Dee Wallace-Stone) and Elizabeth's husband Lou (Fred Ward)
think the two are having an affair.
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Although it's a rather amusing
sideshow it takes too much screen time.
The main story is the Michael-Deborah-Toni triangle and frankly it goes
through kind of quickly. Compare it to another contemporary movie, Some Kind of Wonderful which
focused on the triangle and did it much better.
Still, it's an entertaining movie. Lori Loughlin looks young with the
big hair, and she was young in "Full House". C Thomas Howell and Kelly
Preston also look young though their current pictures aren't as firmly
in my mind.
You know, I may be rating this movie a bit too highly. Compared to
other 80's movies its subpar and if it were made today it would also be
subpar. But I get nostalgic and I haven't been watching 80's teen
movies so I did enjoy it.
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