The Sure Thing (1985)

Directed by: Rob Reiner | 100 minutes | comedy, romance | Actors: John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Anthony Edwards, Boyd Gaines, Tim Robbins, Lisa Jane Persky, Viveca Lindfors, Nicollette Sheridan, Marcia Christie, Robert Anthony Marcucci, Sarah Buxton, Lorrie Lightle

Boy meets girl, boy and girl can’t stand each other, but over time Love blossoms. With a capital L and a heart on the i. ‘The Sure Thing’ doesn’t have much originality, that should be clear. The fact that the film still looks fresh despite the gray beard of the basic information is due to the talented actors and the sharp screenplay.

In 1985, John Cusack was an eighteen-year-old, but it was already clear then why directors of romantic comedies would later queue up for him. He may not be as slick as Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, but his timing is perfect and he manages to be both confident and endearingly shy: Gib is an underdog with a wagging tail and sharp teeth. Which also explains why his character is palatable to men who normally get a toothache at the word romcom. Daphne Zuniga is also perfectly cast as a good student who, after some insistence, hangs out of a car window half-naked, to prove that despite her motto “spontaneity has its time and its place” she has quite a wild side.

The screenplay gives the young actors plenty of ammunition for sparks-flying verbal sparring, culminating in the scene in which Gibson inventively rescues Alison from the clutches of a horny driver. And then immediately forfeits the acquired goodwill with incorrect remarks. Of course, the established battles between the sexes are amply discussed. Women whine and are way too serious. Men are rude and shallow. Women want a reliable guy who completely adapts to them. Men want a woman who looks good in a bikini and who is always in the mood for sex. Or is love more capricious than that? Yes, director Rob Reiner seems to want to say. And he repeated that message four years later in ‘When Harry Met Sally’, in which the main characters are also on their way to each other for a film.

Thanks to the spirited dialogues, the recalcitrant characters and the hilarious entanglements, ‘The Sure Thing’ rises above the standard confectionery that Hollywood sends into the cinema under the name ‘romantic comedy’. The film was made with great pleasure and it does what it promises. You can laugh about it and when the main characters find each other at the end of the ride, you are left with a nice woolly feeling. You just give it to them, that Gibson and that Alison. Finally a sweet film that doesn’t stick to your teeth.