SURE THING, THE

(March 1985, U.S.)

To look back at Rob Reiner's second film, THE SURE THING is not only a nostalgic trip back in time to when I was a high school senior in 1985, but also back to the early part of Reiner's film career before hits like A FEW GOOD MEN (1992) and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (1995), as well as young, unknown actor named John Cusack. But let's begin with what I consider more important than those behind the film, ME!

In March 1985, I was knee-deep in college applications and just starting to reach the point of my senior year where I (and so many other seniors) felt relatively safe in coasting through the remaining months of the school year in anticipation of guaranteed college acceptance. My mind was already focused on the insane social life (away from my parents!) that my new college life would bring. Months before ST. ELMO'S FIRE would give me a taste of the post-college years of youth, THE SURE THING gave me the first taste of college life as it happened. Yes, when I sat there in that New York City movie theater watching scenes of Cusack's life at an unnamed New England college and that half-crazed student placed his huge stereo speaker inside his window and screamed at the top of his lungs to the entire campus, "It's Friday night!!!", I proclaimed inside the theater for all to hear, "I can't wait to get to college!"

Going to see THE SURE THING, my first presumption, despite its PG-13 rating, was that it was just another product of the teen sex comedy craze that had dominated the early part of the 1980s. Not to say the film didn't have its small share of sexual innuendos and enticements. The movie immediately opens with the sights of a sizzling hot California blonde (played by Nicollette Sheridan) as she slowly and systematically prepares her gorgeous body with suntan lotion on a beach while Rod Stewart sings "Infatuation"...

Okay, we've had our momentary taste of the hot piece of ass that we'll come to know as "the sure thing". But now we meet high school senior Walter Gibson (Cusack) and his best friend Lance (played by Anthony Edwards) as they celebrate moving on to college. Gibson is hardly excited, as he's been in a sexual dry spell lately and feels his lost his touch with women (what's he bitching about? I hadn't yet lost my virginity when I was his age!). Even at college, his attempts to get close to Alison Bradbury (played by Daphne Zuniga) repeatedly fail because she's basically a stuck-up, repressed bitch with a serious weed up her ass. Still, Gibson presses on, and eventually convinces her to tutor him in English, but not after he's made a complete and deliberate ass of himself at the campus pool. Actually, it's this scene at the pool and his entire soliloquy of what will happen to his life if she doesn't help him that first made me stand up and take notice of Cusack and say to myself, "Oh man, this guy is gonna be big!" (and big he became, but not until SAY ANYTHING three years later, in my opinion. Even as he persists in trying to woo Alison off of her stubborn feet, he's been set up by Lance in California to meet (and screw) the previously-mentioned hot and beautiful blonde, assured by Lance that she's "a sure thing". All he has to do is drag his ass to California for Christmas break before she leaves for a semester abroad.

Unable to afford to fly to California, Gibson secures a ride share with a real show tune-loving square couple (the guy played by an unknown Tim Robbins). Care to guess who's also in the back seat sharing the same ride with him? Yup! It's Alison, and she's not too happy about the unexpected arrangement. At this point, Gibson has become frustrated with her, as well, even declaring to her face how repressed he feels she is. Well, like any other road movie before or after this one, it's an inevitable cliché that our two protagonists will weaken and fall in love with each other. Trouble is, Alison feels committed to her long-time boyfriend Jason, who's just as square as she is, and Gibson has a destiny with his blonde piece of ass (bless her!). The ride share falls apart and Gibson and Alison are forced to hitchhike across the country to California, enduring poverty, hunger, hard rain, sleazy rednecks, and of course, each other. There's no sex between them, nor is there even the unexpected kiss, but we know time and circumstance is bringing them closer together.

Once in California, Gibson's real intentions are exposed and Alison is pissed off, despite still feeling the attraction toward him. At a college mixer, they argue in front of Jason and "the sure thing", trying to provoke each other's buttons. As you might predict, Gibson can't go through with his arranged sexual encounter (what a wimp!) and Alison feels estranged from Jason. Following the break, Gibson and Alison are brought together in their English class when their professor reads aloud, Gibson's writing assignment in which he describes a fictional account of a young man who could not confess false love to his "sure thing" and in the end, did not sleep with her. Awww! Gibson loves Alison and Alison loves Gibson, they kiss, the movie ends, and all is well with our young college lovers.

So, it's not ANIMAL HOUSE, PORKY'S or FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT NIGHT, but we're meant to understand that Rob Reiner never intends for THE SURE THING to be such a film, though we do get the occasional visual reminder of the hot, blonde hottie Gibson is looking forward to...

(sorry, I couldn't resist one more shot of her!)

It's teenage material told a milder level, much like John Hughes's SIXTEEN CANDLES. It's the traditional romantic comedy for what was the new age, at the time, but even more than than, it was a look at what could possibly happen to a young guy like me when he got to college. Well, all I can say is that if you're interested in knowing what actually did happen to me when I got to college, refer to my post of ST. ELMO'S FIRE (it's all there). In the meantime, THE SURE THING remains a nostalgic trip to the time when my college expectation were high, as well as my expectations for John Cusack (as soon as he got crap like BETTER OFF DEAD and ONE CRAZY SUMMER out of his system).

Favorite line or dialogue:

Walter Gibson (to Alison as she swims): "I flunk English, I'm outta here. Kiss college goodbye. I don't know what I'll do. I'll probably go home. Gee, Dad'll be pissed off. Mom'll be heartbroken. And if I play my cards right, I get maybe a six-month grace period and then I gotta get a job, and you know what that means. That's right. They start me at the drive-up window and I gradually work my way up from shakes to burgers, and then one day my lucky break comes, the french fry guy dies and they offer me the job! But the day I'm supposed to start, some men come by in a black Lincoln Continental and tell me I can make a quick three hundred just for driving a van back from Mexico! When I get out of jail, I'm thirty-six years old, living in a flop house, no job, no home, no upward mobility, very few teeth! And then one day they find me, face down, talking to the gutter, clutching a bottle of paint thinner! And why? Because you wouldn't help me in English, no! You were too busy to help me! Too busy to help a drowning man!"