Say Anything… is a 1989 American teen romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe (in his directorial debut). The film follows the romance between Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack), an average student, and Diane Court (Ione Skye), the class valedictorian, immediately after their graduation from high school. In 2002, Entertainment Weekly ranked Say Anything… as the greatest modern movie romance, and it was ranked number 11 on Entertainment Weekly s list of the 50 best high-school movies.

Plot

At the end of their senior year of high school, noble underachiever Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) falls for valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye) and plans to ask her out, though they belong to different social groups.

Lloyd s parents are stationed in Germany for the Army, so he lives with his sister Constance (Joan Cusack, uncredited), a single mother, and has no plans yet for his future. Diane comes from a sheltered academic upbringing, living with her doting divorced father Jim (John Mahoney), who owns the retirement home where she works. She will take up a prestigious fellowship in Britain at the end of the summer.

Lloyd offers to take Diane to their graduation party. She agrees, to everyone s surprise. Their next date is a dinner at Diane s, where Lloyd fails to impress Jim, and the Internal Revenue Service informs the latter he is under scrutiny.

Diane introduces Lloyd to the retirement home residents and he teaches her to drive her manual-transmission Ford Tempo graduation gift. They grow closer and become intimate, to her father s concern. Lloyd s musician best friend Corey, who has never gotten over her cheating ex-boyfriend, Joe, warns him to take care of Diane.

Jim urges Diane to break up with Lloyd, feeling he is not an appropriate match, and suggests she give Lloyd a pen as a parting gift. Worried about her father, Diane tells Lloyd she wants to stop seeing him and concentrate on her studies, giving him the pen. Devastated, he seeks advice from Corey, who tells him to be a man . Meanwhile, Jim discovers the IRS cut off his credit when his credit cards are declined as the investigation drags on.

At dawn, Lloyd plays In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, which was playing when they became intimate, on a boombox, standing under her open bedroom window. The next day, Diane meets with the IRS investigator, who says they have evidence incriminating Jim with embezzling funds from his retirement-home residents. He suggests she accept the fellowship as matters with her father will worsen.

Diane finds the cash concealed at home and confronts Jim, who tells her he took it to give her financial independence. Jim feels justified in doing so as he provided better care of his residents than their families. Distraught, she reconciles with Lloyd at his kick-boxing gym.

At the end of summer, Jim is incarcerated on a 9-month sentence. Lloyd visits him at the prison, saying he is going with Diane to Britain; Jim reacts with anger. Lloyd gives him a letter from Diane, but she arrives to say goodbye and they embrace. She gives him the pen she gave Lloyd, asking him to write to her in Britain. Lloyd comforts Diane, who is afraid of flying, on their flight.

Cast

• John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler
• Ione Skye as Diane Court
• John Mahoney as Jim Court
• Lili Taylor as Corey Flood
• Amy Brooks as D.C.
• Pamela Adlon as Rebecca
• Jason Gould as Mike Cameron
• Loren Dean as Joe
• Polly Platt as Mrs. Flood
• Bebe Neuwirth as Mrs. Evans
• Jeremy Piven as Mark
• Eric Stoltz as Vahlere
• Kim Walker as Sheila
• Chynna Phillips as Mimi
• Joan Cusack as Constance Dobler (uncredited)
• Philip Baker Hall as IRS Boss
• Joanna Frank as Mrs. Kerwin
• John Hillner as Court s Attorney
• Dan Castellaneta as Diane s teacher (uncredited)

Jennifer Connelly and Ione Skye vied for the role of Diane Court, but Connelly lost out to Skye. Robert Downey Jr. was offered the role of Lloyd Dobler, but turned it down. Christian Slater and Kirk Cameron were also considered for the role. Dick Van Dyke and Richard Dreyfuss were considered for the role of Jim Court.

Soundtrack

Allmusic wrote that the soundtrack, like the film, is much smarter than the standard teen fare of the era. The soundtrack consists of these songs:

No.	Title	Artist	Length
1.	All for Love	Nancy Wilson	4:37
2.	Cult of Personality	Living Colour	5:07
3.	One Big Rush	Joe Satriani	3:25
4.	You Want It	Cheap Trick	3:43
5.	Taste the Pain	Red Hot Chili Peppers	5:04
6.	In Your Eyes	Peter Gabriel	5:23
7.	Stripped	Depeche Mode	6:41
8.	Skankin to the Beat	Fishbone	2:49
9.	Within Your Reach	The Replacements	4:26
10.	Keeping the Dream Alive	Freiheit	4:14
11.	Lloyd Dobler Rap	John Cusack	0:33
Total length:			45:29

Critical reception

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert called Say Anything… one of the best films of the year—a film that is really about something, that cares deeply about the issues it contains—and yet it also works wonderfully as a funny, warmhearted romantic comedy. He later included it in his 2002 Great Movie list, writing, Say Anything exists entirely in a real world, is not a fantasy or a pious parable, has characters who we sort of recognize, and is directed with care for the human feelings involved.

The film also had detractors. Variety called it a half-baked love story, full of good intentions but uneven in the telling. But, the review also said the film s ppealing tale of an undirected army brat proving himself worthy of the most exceptional girl in high school elicits a few laughs, plenty of smiles and some genuine feeling. In a mixed review, Caryn James of The New York Times wrote:

resembles a first-rate production of a children s story. Its sense of parents and the summer after high school is myopic, presented totally from the teenagers point of view. Yet its melodrama—Will Dad go to prison? Will Diane go to England?—distorts that perspective, so the film doesn t have much to offer an actual adult, not even a sense of what it s truly like to be just out of high school these days. The film is all charming performances and grace notes, but there are plenty of worse things to be.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 98% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website s consensus reads, One of the definitive Generation X movies, Say Anything is equally funny and heartfelt—and it established John Cusack as an icon for left-of-center types everywhere. On Metacritic the film has a score of 85% based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating Universal acclaim . Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F.

Cultural influence

The film features one of the most culturally recognizable scenes in American movie history, in which John Cusack holds a boombox above his head outside Diane s bedroom window to let her know that he has not given up on her. Crowe and producer James L. Brooks believed the scene could become a hallmark of the movie, though Crowe found it difficult to film because Cusack felt it was too passive . The scene was first scored with Fishbone s Question of Life , but after viewing the scene, Crowe opted to replace it with Peter Gabriel s In Your Eyes to better fit the mood that he wished to convey. Gabriel initially turned down Crowe because he confused the film with another film in production at the time, a John Belushi biography called Wired.

That scene is like Romeo under the trellis, said Crowe reminiscing about the iconic scene. But I have this feeling when I watch it that it s filled with double emotion – both with the story and the actors, whose own trepidation bleeds in.

Another common meme phrase from the movie comes from the breakup scene, where Diane gives Lloyd the pen. His response, I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen,” inspired its own song by band Hidden Track.

Cancelled TV series

A television series based on the movie was planned by NBC and 20th Century Fox, but producers Aaron Kaplan and Justin Adler did not know that Crowe had not approved of the project. When they found out his views, the show was dropped.

Year	1989
ReleaseDate	1989-04-14
RuntimeMins	100
RuntimeStr	1h 40min
Plot	A noble underachiever and a beautiful valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college.
Awards	Awards, 1 win & 3 nominations
Directors	Cameron Crowe
Writers	Cameron Crowe
Stars	John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney
Produced by	James L. Brooks,Paul Germain,Richard Marks,Polly Platt
Music by	Anne Dudley,Richard Gibbs
Cinematography by	László Kovács
Film Editing by	Richard Marks
Casting By	Randy Stone
Production Design by	Mark W. Mansbridge
Set Decoration by	Joe D. Mitchell
Costume Design by	Jane Ruhm
Makeup Department	Judith A. Cory,Carolyn Ferguson,Cheri Minns
Production Management	Herb Adelman,Jack Roe,Richard Sakai
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Herb Adelman,Bryan Denegal,Lynda Gilman,Vicki Jackson-Lemay,Jerry Ziesmer
Art Department	Scott M. Anderson,Barry Bedig,Richard Beyer,Steve Callas,Bruce Crone,Karen Lee Holley,Robert Lindsey,Edward Piwowarski,Paul Powers,Butch West
Sound Department	Gary Alexander,Scott Austin,Terry Burke,Bill Burns,Nancy Cipes,Jacqueline Cristianini,Joe Dorn,Dennis Drummond,Patrick Drummond,Julie Feiner,Sukey Fontelieu,Joan Giammarco,Aaron Glascock,Margaret Goodspeed,Doug Hemphill,Chris Jenkins,Nicholas Korda,Stephanie Lowry,Susan Mazzei,Thomas A. Payne,Art Rochester,Douglas J. Schulman,John Shouse,Frank Smathers,J.D. Ward,Linda Whittlesey,Ed Golya,Don MacDougall
Camera and Electrical Department	Richmond L. Aguilar,Neil Bestwick,Paul Caven,David Christie,Curtis Foster,Michael Gershman,Donald L. Hartley,Al Hisky,Gene Kearney,Gemma La Mana,Peter McEvoy,Bob Munoz,Joseph E. Thibo,Rick Tucker
Casting Department	Sharon Bialy,Patti Carns Kalles,Barbara Harris,Richard Pagano
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Valerie Laven-Cooper,Michael Lynn,Carlane Passman,Stephen P. Shubin,Fran Vega-Buck
Editorial Department	Donah Bassett,Margaret Guinee,Phil Hetos,Stephanie Lowry,Mark Nakamine,Karen I. Stern
Location Management	Vicky Berglund-Davenport,David Salven Jr.,Steve Share
Music Department	Margaret Adachi,Danny Bramson,Stewart Dixon,George Doering,Philip Giffin,Carlton Kaller,Peter McCabe,Robert Schaper,Lonnie Sill,Gabe Veltri,Nancy Wilson
Script and Continuity Department	Ray Quiroz
Transportation Department	Fritz Braden,Jon McCarthy,James Nordberg,Mike Paventi,Julio Salazar,Rick Wiley
Additional Crew	Tom Adams,Karyn Alexander,Diane Brooks,Bud Brown,Kathie Broyles,Eric Chard,Kelly Curtis,David Gilmore,Robert Gordon,Clay A. Griffith,Hilbert Hakim,Bela Horvath,Linden Johnson,Patty MacDonald,M. Rutledge McCall,Mike McCall,Rob McEntegart,George Niciforos,Jeffrey A. Okun,Fredell Pogodin,Tim Roe,Jeff Russell,Rick Serva,Eric Stoltz,Paul Sullivan,Todd Turner,Shelley Wenk,Jeff Winn,Michelle Wright,Sandi Yunt,Suzanne Ziesmer
Thanks	David Davis
Genres	Comedy, Drama, Romance
Companies	Gracie Films, Twentieth Century Fox
Countries	USA
Languages	English
ContentRating	PG-13
ImDbRating	7.3
ImDbRatingVotes	90362
MetacriticRating	85
Keywords	teenager,teen romance,father daughter relationship,teen movie,two word title