It’s a coming-of-age teen-romance movie for the ages. John Cusack is a sensitive and adrift every-teen who nevertheless gets the popular high school valedictorian in the summer after graduation.
Entertainment Weekly magazine called the film one of the greatest modern movie romances, and ranked it No. 11 on its list of All Time Best High School Movies.
The movie, released nearly 30 years ago, is called “Say Anything …, ” and Cusak will be at Easton’s State Theatre on Thursday for a screening of the film, followed by a live, moderated conversation — including audience questions — about the movie and his career.
But in a phone call from Chicago to promote the event, Cusack doesn’t seem to be willing to say much about his feelings on the movie, or answer hypothetical questions about its characters.
Maybe he’s saving his answers for the event, or maybe he honestly wants to protect film’s legacy.
“Say Anything …” was released in 1989, at the end of a decade seemingly filled with romantic drama/comedies set in and after high school — “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Yet it seemed to rise above all of them in substance and staying power.
Four decades later, the -nternet rating site Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98-percent “fresh” rating and calls it, “One of the definitive Generation X movies. ‘Say Anything’ is equally funny and heartfelt.”
“I think that it’s a good film, you know?” Cusack says. “Well-made and good directing, writing, acting, great cinemetopgrapher. So there’s a lot of talent around on that movie. So, um, things go right, you make something memorable.”
In the film, Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler, a seeming slacker who has deep and loyal friendships, but whose has decided, somewhat whimsically, to make kickboxing his future. He falls for, and wins the love of, the academic-but-sheltered Diane Court (Ione Skye), who has a fellowship in England lined up.
Diane’s protective father persuades her to break up with Lloyd, but a family crises drives them back together. Perhaps the film’s most memorable scene is Lloyd outside Diane’s bedroom window, holding aloft a 1980s boom box blasting their song, Peter Gabriel’s “In You Eyes.”
Cusack already had starred in several of those teen films (including “Sixteen Candles”) when he says first-time director Cameron Crowe — who already had success writing “Fast Times” and “The Wild Life” — sought him out to play Lloyd.
Cusack was 22 and already had graduated to more mature roles in films such as “Broadcast News,” and says he was reluctant to take the role.
“Cameron wanted me for it,” Cusack says. “And I didn’t really want to do it at first. And then I kept talking to him, and we started working on the character together. And then I ended up doing it.”
Cusack says he helped “broaden” the character. “Kind of re-writing it a little bit, to give him a little more of a world view — as far as what a world view is, graduating from high school. And expressing a kind of a very non-conformist attitude.”
It’s been said that non-conformist attitude is what made the character of Lloyd so popular. Critics have said he’s sensitive enough to be liked by female viewers, but cool enough that males identify with him.
“Yeah, I think that’s true,” Cusack says. “He was super-sensitive about being kind of a sad sack kind of a person. You know, he was a boxer and had an odd sense of humor; was funny. So he probably allowed a lot of people to be a little bit more sensitive than the usual male hero. I think it’s a non-conformist kind of character.”
But Cusak says the film’s other stars were similarly well developed.
“I think even the father [played by John Mahoney] and the female are not drawn from stereotypes,” Cusack says. “They both have very, very individual characteristics that ring true. And have flaws and weaknesses that ring true. It’s just a well-made character piece.”
Cusack says he wasn’t sure that when he was making the movie, or afterward, that it would be a great success.
“You never really know,” he says. “Because usually in Hollywood, they don’t think anything’s successful unless it makes $150 million at the box office right when it comes out.”
And, in fact, “Say Anything …” wasn’t that kind of success. It made $20.8 million, which adjusted for inflation puts it somewhere in the middle of the nearly 75 films in which Cusack has appeared, but far below such blockbusters as the 1997 action film “Con Air” or the 2009 science fiction disaster flick “2012,” both of which grossed more than 10 times that amount.
Yet “Say Anything …” continued to find viewers, and nearly 30 years after its release has dedicated fans.
“Played over time, you know, people kept coming back to it and re-experiencing it,” Cusack says. “So it was one that sort of snuck up on people. That happens a lot in movies, though, actually. It’s not often that everything gets recognized right when it comes out.”
Cusack says his recollection is that “Say Anything” gave his career a bit of a boost. Rotten Tomatoes says “it established John Cusack as an icon for left-of-center types everywhere.”
“I’ve been hot and cold so many times that I can’t even remember,” Cusack says with a laugh. “But, um, so I remember after that I got a little bit more buzz — probably got offered some good roles.”
Cusack, now 52, went on to some significant roles. Another romantic comedy/drama, “Serendipity” in 2001, not only became one of his highest-grossing, but had similar viewer attachment. In 1997, his comedy/crime film “Grosse Pointe Blank,” which he also co-wrote, had critical acclaim.
“That was fun,” he says. “Peter Chelsom was a terrific director and we had fun. Got to work with Eugene Levy and some other actors that we really liked.”
He also starred in critics’s favorites such as 1997’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and 1999’s “Being John Malkovitch,” for which he got a Screen Actors Guild nomination. And another romantic comedy, 2000’s “High Fidelity,” which he also co-wrote, got him a Golden Globe nomination.
Cusack says he’s grateful for the recognition, but says, “I’m not too much into the awards world. That was nice that they want to give me one for that, or nominate me or whatever, but it’s also, like, it’s a little bit pay-to-play, those things.
“There’s a lot of politics and, you know, money’s changing hands around those movies that people don’t see in the outside world. So it’s not quite so much of a pure endeavor — it’s more of a political endeavor.”
Asked how he ranks “Say Anything …” against those films, Cusack demurs.
“I think the good ones are just good,” he says. “So if you going to do a list, it’s like, maybe they’re a single or a double or a triple or a home run. But you snuck ’em through. So you’re in the big leagues, if you do that three out of 10 times, you’re doing all right.”
Crowe also went on to greater success after “Say Anything …” The 1996 film “Jerry Maguire,” for which he was writer, producer and director, was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Supporting Actor. “Almost Famous” in 2000 got four Oscar nominations, and won for Best Original Screenplay.
Cusack continues to have an active career. He starred as Beach Boy Brian Wilson in the 2014 biopic “Love & Mercy,” which was nominated for two Golden Globes. He’s credited with three direct-to-video releases in 2017.
He says he’s now “trying to get together a couple of my own things, but it’s harder to raise money these days. But we’ll see what happens.”
He says people have brought up the idea of a sequel to “Say Anything …,” but he says, “I don’t think Cameron wants to touch that one. Um, or if he does, he’s never expressed it to me.”
At this point, he’s asked, wouldn’t Lloyd and Diane have grandchildren?
“I don’t know about grandchildren,” he says. “But maybe …”
So do Lloyd and Diane make it as a couple?
At the end of “Say Anything …,” the two are on a plane together, taking off to go to her fellowship in England. In explaining about airplane safety, Lloyd says that a little “ding” means they’re comfortably in flight and everything is going to be all right.
Does that suggest the relationship, too, continued sailing smooth?
“Uh, well, yeah, you can’t … you never know.”
So what does he think happened to Lloyd and Diane?
“I don’t know,” he says.
So he’s just not going to “Say Anything …”?
“No, I don’t think so.”
