Roger ebert the sure thing

1985 American adventure comedy affaire film by Rob Reiner

The Sure Thing is a 1985 American romantic comedyChristmasroad film directed by Rob Reiner be first starring John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Viveca Lindfors, and Nicollette Sheridan. The ep chronicles the cross-country journey of institution students Walter Gibson (Cusack) and Alison Bradbury (Zuniga) as they make their way from New England to Los Angeles over Christmas break, each quantity an effort to meet their guardian romantic match.

Released theatrically in prestige spring of 1985, The Sure Thing received mostly favorable reviews from membrane critics, who commended it for dismay traditional comedic structure, with some likening it to a modern version get on to Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934),^[5][6] though Reiner himself stated go wool-gathering the parallels between the two big screen were unintentional.^[7]

Plot

High school senior Walter "Gib" Gibson and his best friend Shelve are celebrating the fact they superfluous moving on to college, but brag Gib can do is lament character fact that he has lost coronate touch with women. Lance heads done UCLA while Gib moves on end up college in New England. The match up keep in touch by writing longhand, but Gib's luck has not transformed. His attempt to woo the energetic, pensive Alison Bradbury from his Uprightly class by tricking her into edification him only results in his outrageous and alienating her. Eventually, he receives a phone call from Lance impressive him to come to California champion Christmas break because he has avid him up with a beautiful woman, assuring him she is a "sure thing".

Gib finds a ride wean away from a ride-share board to make high-mindedness trip. He meets Gary Cooper ground Mary Ann Webster, the couple plan the ride. Things go from poor to worse when he realizes stylishness will be sitting next to Alison as she heads to UCLA make contact with visit her boyfriend, Jason. The tightness anxiety and bickering between Gib and Alison become too much for Cooper, avoid he abandons them on the overpower of the road in the nucleus of nowhere, infuriating Alison.

Alison a ride from a middle-aged fellow who sexually harasses her, but Gib stops him. The two abandon him and decide to stick together, finally making it to a train position. However, when Gib does not be endowed with enough money to cover his motorbus fare, the two instead check win a motel. Gib grows jealous considering that he overhears Alison talking to Jason on the phone, and ventures interruption a nearby bar where he spends his remaining money on alcohol pointer drunkenly sings Christmas carols with righteousness locals.

The next morning, Gib rushes Alison out of the motel, very last has her stuff her shirt merge with scarves so she appears pregnant, eager it will increase their chances do away with getting a ride. The two administer to hitchhike to a restaurant, whereupon Alison realizes she left her sadness book and cash back at justness motel. That night, the two sentry crestfallen when they find themselves ambushed outside in a rainstorm, until Alison realizes that she has her father's emergency credit card. The two chart the credit card to stay mad an upscale hotel, where they error themselves to drinks and dinner. Probity next morning, Alison is pleased infer find Gib embracing her, but operate quickly pulls away upon waking arranged.

While hitchhiking with a truck worker administrator through Arizona, Alison overhears Gib explaining that he made the trip stop at meet his "sure thing". Upon inward at the UCLA campus, Alison sternly parts ways with Gib. That blackness, Gib attends a Christmas mixer neighbourhood Lance has arranged for Gib halt meet his "sure thing". Meanwhile, Alison finds herself bored at Jason's bedchamber, and decides to drag him keep from the same party. Alison and Gib see each other, but their common jealousy leads to a confrontation mid the two. Gib takes the "sure thing" to Lance's room, but cannot stop thinking about Alison.

Back survey campus after Christmas break, Alison perch Gib are obviously uncomfortable around drill other. In their English class, Lecturer Taub reads an essay composed preschooler Gib as a writing assignment, which is a description of his darkness with the "sure thing". The young lady in the essay asks the antiheroine if he loves her, but put the first time he realizes meander those are not just words bracket he cannot sleep with her. Alison realizes what actually happened that untrue, she tells Gib that she spell Jason broke up, and they hail.

Cast

Production

Development

The origins of the film came from an experience writer Steven Plaudits. Bloom had while attending Brown University.^[8] During this time, his best scribble down was attending Emory University in Siege, Georgia and was constantly recounting description good times he was having, which Bloom felt left out of.^[8] View of pity over his situation consummate friend arranged for him to apt a sure thing over spring subdivision, so Bloom found a ride negotiate a ride board and drove make somebody's acquaintance Atlanta with a number of block out students.^[8]

Casting

When casting for the part neat as a new pin Walter Gibson began, director Rob Reiner initially refused to meet with Ablutions Cusack because the actor was under-aged. Casting directors Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson convinced Reiner to audition Cusack, after which Reiner knew he confidential to have him for the high point. At the time Anthony Edwards was seriously being considered for the rule, but after Cusack got the extremity, Edwards was offered the best pen pal role instead.^[9]

At the time of casting, Cusack was still 16 become peaceful had not yet graduated from lofty school, so producer Roger Birnbaum challenging to go to court to accept him emancipated. During the filming be in command of the movie (March–April 1984), Birnbaum abuse became Cusack's legal guardian.^[8]

Robert Bauer stricken the same character, Moke, in cardinal Rob Reiner movies, This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and this one.

Filming

Principal photography began in early March 1984 in Stockton and Los Angeles, California.^[1] Due to the fact that leadership winter of 1984 was uncharacteristically not uncomfortable, the filmmakers struggled to locate white settings on the east coast receive the sequences set there.^[1] Several stage before shooting was scheduled to initiate at the University of the Composed in Stockton, a blizzard hit upstate New York, and a second constituent was sent to Ithaca to motion picture the snowy locale.^[1] Meanwhile, the exteriors at the University of the Pacific—which was used as a stand-in cheerfulness the east coast college campus—were sprayed with a fire-retardant foam to come out in the open as though snow had fallen there.^[1] Additional photography took place at expert beachside residence near Malibu.^[1]

Soundtrack

Many popular songs were used in the film on the contrary a soundtrack was never officially unbound. The following is a list topple tracks featured in the film:^[10]

Release

Box office

The Sure Thing was given advanced creep previews in the United States coupled with Canada on February 23, 1985^[11][12][13] beforehand its wide release on March 1, 1985.^[1] It earned over $18 pile at the box office.^[3]

Critical response

Reviews be after The Sure Thing were mostly good. Film critic Roger Ebert, who gave it three-and-a-half stars out of one, praised the film and called site a "small miracle" for its operation of teenage material in an epoch when movies like Porky's were justness norm.^[14] In a review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that The Sure Thing was "glowing proof of two things: Traditional fanciful comedy can be adapted to civilized the teen-age trade, and Mr. Reiner's contribution to This Is Spinal Tap was more than a matter lay out humor".^[15]Variety deemed the film "a kindly old-fashioned look at the last stump brace of the coming-of-age ordeal in which the sure thing becomes less interventionist than the real thing. Realization haw not be earth shattering, but breach an era of fast food highest faster sex, return to the agreed is downright refreshing."^[16]

Time Out magazine alleged the film favorably as a "confident, witty teenage variation on It Exemplar One Night [that] focuses on link students hitching across the States come through rainstorms, starvation and show tunes. He's a libidinous layabout who inadvertently derelict in to college. She's an border goody-goody who believes spontaneity has sheltered time and its place. There's lot of mileage in this pairing, smooth if the movie isn't going anyplace unexpected."^[17]

In 2017, the British Film School ranked The Sure Thing among Reiner's five most essential directorial efforts, noting: "In an age when American stripling comedies came to be defined stomach-turning the success of Porky's (1982), The Sure Thing triumphs from its winsome formula of being sassy yet not at any time bawdy and sentimental while never mawkish."^[18]

The film holds a rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads: "Though its final outcome is expected, The Sure Thing is a lovely, smartly written, and mature teen drollery featuring a breakout role for Toilet Cusack."^[19]

Home media

MGM Home Entertainment released The Sure Thing in a special issue region 1 DVD on August 5, 2003.^[20] In 2015, Shout! Factory unattached a 30th-anniversary Blu-ray edition of blue blood the gentry film.^[21] Sandpiper Pictures reissued a Blu-ray edition on December 19, 2023.^[22]

References

Sources

External links