Curly Sue

Year: 1991

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Hughes

Review

i can understand people not liking this film because it can be sentimental at times. but the film rises above the sentimentality that it does have. fist, the ending, while typically “happy” works within the framework. hughes actually does himself a disservice by inserting a false unhappy ending and then turning it upside down. at first we think belushi leaves, but it turns out that he doesn’t. this plot twist works against him in two ways: it comes off as manipulative to some and it makes the “happy” ending seem like a cop out, when it really is the only ending that makes sense given the context of the rest of the film. in this case, a happy ending makes perfect sense and works and doesn’t require any drama.

other than the ending i actually liked the film despite its cuteness. there’s a cellphone gag in the film that’s 10 years ahead of its time, the sound is typically great (hughes always uses sound amazingly well), and the whole film has an almost cartoonish youthfulness to its humor. there’s always something to like about a hughes film.