Volume 17 - Say Anything...and The Indomitable Dreamer

You might not realize this when you read my rambling prose, but I consider myself to be something of a perfectionist. I'm not the kind of perfectionist that wants everything in my life to be perfect - I'm no dummy, I know what the real world can do to us all - but when I set my sights on something I want it to be perfect. That's why it takes two or three or four weeks for me to write one of these ridiculous double features, because I'm not willing to do less than my best when it comes to movies I love.

In this double feature, we're going to talk about a couple of my favorite moves, and a couple of my favorite young heroes. They also have a perfect idea of what they want to do with their life. They both approach life from different angles, but they're both pretty lovable and work hard to overcome their flaws.  They're the kind of people I want to be when I grow up, with a couple of reservations that we'll talk about as we go on.

This double feature starts with a timeless love story - something that's far from my expertise or my personal experience - and yet still it's a film that says something profound to me. Let's check it out.

Say Anything...

1989, Directed by Cameron Crowe

The tagline for this movie calls it "A Lloyd meets girl story," which sounds incredibly stupid until you meet Lloyd Dobler. I'm not sure there's ever been anyone on film quite like Lloyd Dobler, a one of a kind hopeless romantic. He doesn't seem one of a kind from a distance - we've all seen a white boy who thinks this girl is perfect and he must have her - but when you get to know him you can see why he's so special

Lloyd Dobler, as played by John Cusack, is a high school graduate/aspiring kickboxer who decides he wants to go out with Diane Court (Ione Skye). Diane Court is also a high school graduate, but is not a kickboxer. She's the class valedictorian, set for a bright future, and Lloyd decides that he's destined to be a part of it. The catch is that Diane Court barely knows who Lloyd Dobler is.

One of the common misconceptions when people talk about Say Anything is that Lloyd is a loser or a nobody when he starts to reach out to Diane. Watching the movie closely shows that's clearly not the case. Lloyd has friends, he's welcome to hang out with most anyone he knows, he's a caring brother and uncle, and he's trusted and kind of admired by almost everyone he meets. If you could walk into the beginning of this film and walk up to any character that knows Lloyd, I don't expect you would hear a single bad word about him. Even star-crossed lovers like his friends Corey (Lili Taylor) and Joe (Loren Dean) are both on good terms with Lloyd. I can't picture a scenario where Lloyd is bullied for anything he would do, because he always seems to be walking around with his head held high and his mind made up. He's someone who accepts others as they are, who dreams about what he wants to be, and who is willing to be straight-forward, honest, and respectful toward anyone he meets. In short, he's a real great guy.

So then, the question becomes this - why doesn't Lloyd accept that he's great and move on with his life and just be happy? That's when the perfectionist in Lloyd comes in to play. The thing about someone like Lloyd is that he's not really happy being liked by everyone - he wants to be loved by someone. And he doesn't want just any someone, he wants the someone he's decided is perfect to him. 

I once sat in on a presentation about stalking behavior where one of the first quips the presenter made was "We see stalking in the media all the time, like in John Cusack movies." While I understand that presenter's perspective, I still think they missed the mark entirely. Lloyd Dobler certainly is presented as being enamored with Diane Court, and you could argue he becomes obsessed as the film goes on. But to classify his actions as stalking is certainly a discredit to how much he cares about Diane's wishes, not to mention a slap in the face toward suspension of disbelief. Movies are a dramatic medium, and the behavior of this fictional character should not be looked at as suggestion of real world behaviors. If the argument that horror movies make people more violent is unfair (and I believe it is), then the argument that John Cusack could make people become stalkers is unfair too.

Lloyd does make some dramatic gestures to get Diane's attention - the iconic boom box pose that you see on every single Say Anything poster represents the biggest of them - but it's worth remembering that the little gestures Lloyd makes throughout his relationship with Diane are the ones that stick out to her. He thinks she needs a man who makes grand proclamations and plays a love song (OK, it's the song from the first time they had sex and yeah, that is a little stalkery) outside her window, but the more we get to know Diane the more we see that she's interested in some of his smaller actions. When she has to explain what she likes about Lloyd to her father - played by John Mahoney, who does not get near enough credit for how good he is here - she mentions a moment where Lloyd points out some broken glass in a parking lot and gently guides her to a safe path around it. Other moments where we can tell she's totally enamored with him include his attempt to convince a group of senior citizens to watch Cocoon (Fox had to keep trying to sell their own movie, this was the VHS era after all) and when he checks up on her from across a crowded party. Diane sees how important she is to Lloyd as he does these things, and those are the moments that make her fall more in love with him as the film goes on

Lloyd thinks he needs big words and big actions to impress her, and when he gets too focused on trying to do this he does turn a little dramatic and even loses his cool at times. During the film's darkest scenes, when things aren't working out, he utters the now famous rain-drenched decree "I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen" and it's a moment where we could think Lloyd is being a dope. Yet we, like most everyone else he knows, can see that he's a great person. He just doesn't believe it unless the thing he is focused on is going well for him.

One of my favorite moments to observe Lloyd is when he's confronted by his school guidance counselor about his future plans and offers a fantastic reply about how he's looking for a "dare to be great situation" when he is pressed to make a decision about what he wants to do. 

"How many people really know what they want though?  I mean, a lot of them think that they have to know, right? But inside, they don't really know, so, I don't know.  But I know that I don't know."

Lloyd doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life, and that's fine. That's not Say Anything's concern. This movie's concerned with introducing us to Lloyd and Diane - who also deserves recognition as one of the strongest and smartest female characters in teen cinema - and how much Lloyd is willing to give himself to the idea of being with her. 

The film's title, Say Anything..., is kind of obscure as it applies to the story. The two characters who tell each other that they "can say anything" during the film are Diane and her father. That's one more part of what makes Lloyd such an endearing character, because once you get to know him you know he's the kind of person who never has to be reminded that he can say anything. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he needs to say and lives fearlessly as he attempts to win over Diane. He could have accepted the good life he had, but he saw someone he thought was perfect and he put his entire being into making it happen

If Lloyd Dobler is one of a kind - which I already said he is - then it seems like it would be pretty hard for me to find a double feature partner that meets the high standard he sets. But a lot of the things I love about Lloyd and how this film portrays him are present in a lot of other characters I love. Let's take a look at a few things about Lloyd and see if we can find those in another lead character.

• To simply sum up some of my thoughts on the character, I think Lloyd's biggest flaw at times is having a narrow focus. He's so interested in Diane that he lets other parts of his life - planning for his future and spending time with friends and family are two examples - slip to the wayside. This doesn't really effect Lloyd, because he's easy going and doesn't let it get to him. But you can see that others look at Lloyd a little differently because of his singular focus, and that makes his relationships with others and future prospects a little more difficult.
• That bigger picture is of little interest to Lloyd, and that's fine with him. To him, time spent with Diane is the enrichment he's looking for in his life right now. The flip side of the narrow focus problem is that Lloyd is happy with what he's doing. That's pretty admirable. His approach to life fits pretty well with the central philosophy shared by the lead character in the film we're about to discuss. 
• One thing that does have an effect Lloyd is his perception that Diane represents some kind of perfect or ideal being. Lloyd lets Diane define his world. If he's with her, he's happy. If he's not, he feels like he's failed.  This part of his character is what leads him to some internal conflict, because he won't accept anything less than what he believes she is. Lloyd's idea that anything less than perfection isn't good enough, makes it hard for him to understand the simple things that Diane already loves about him. This is a classic downfall of a dreamer, and one that shows up often for the lead character we're about to talk about

It's easy to find movies about high school dreamers who fall in love, but not easy to find ones with the same indomitable spirit that we see in Lloyd Dobler. The young man at the center of our next film is a little younger and a bit less stable than Lloyd - but he's got that spirit.

So let's talk about a young man named Max Fischer.

Rushmore

1998, Directed by Wes Anderson

"The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore."

When you're fifteen years old and in 10th grade, you don't necessarily have to be popular to be a big man on campus. That's the case for Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), who has very few friends but is involved in almost every extracurricular activity offered at the Rushmore Academy, including a number of clubs he started himself when bored with the school's other options. Max is not one of the cool kids - he's bullied by some and ignored by most - but he's someone who walks like he knows where he's going. Max thinks he's found the thing he loves most in the world - a school that lets him chase any dream that comes to his overactive mind - and he's happy to be a part of that.

There are some obvious barriers that hold back a 15 year old from achieving all their dreams. Max got into Rushmore because he was a child prodigy who wrote one of the best essays that the school's head master (Brian Cox, giving a wonderfully grumpy performance) has ever seen, but now he's failing most of his classes and on probation with a stern warning that one more failed class will lead to him being expelled from the school he loves. One would think this would light a fire under Max - except he's currently enamored with a teacher (Olivia Williams) and more focused on ways to show her how impressive he can be and win her heart. 

That's creepy, of course, because she's a teacher and he's a 15 year old, but don't try telling that to Max. He's living in his own reality, where pursuits like saving Latin courses and building an aquarium on the school's baseball field are achievable goals. Max's determination helps him work toward making these lofty goals come true, despite the wishes of the teacher or the school he is a part of. Much like Lloyd Dobler, Max is someone who won't take no for an answer. Because his goals are so outlandish, this gets him into some trouble. 

It would be easy to present a character like Max Fischer, who clearly doesn't understand major parts of his life, as a joke to the audience. Lloyd Dobler's goal of dating Diane Court is a reasonable, albeit lofty, one in his reality. Max's goal of winning the affection of a grown woman while getting through school on extracurriculars alone is clearly not going to happen, which is fine because Rushmore wouldn't work as a movie if it allowed those goals to come true. Wes Anderson's film had two options - become a pure comedy by making fun of Max for his failure to understand life, or show us how he grows and uses the good parts of his personality to become a better young man than he was at the beginning of the film.

Thankfully for all of us, Anderson chose the second option. The choice to present Max as a mostly harmless dreamer - or, as a young man who's simply fighting through a life where he doesn't fit in with the big crowd - makes Max Fischer one of my favorite film characters and Rushmore one of my favorite films. Max struggles to make things right as he goes through his time at Rushmore and beyond, but he's a kid and even when he's wrong we know that his aim is true and his goals are noble. We can see how much he cares about doing what's right, and that matters a lot.

Neither Lloyd or Max really "gets it" when it comes to the big picture of life, but who among us - outside of fictional character's who've been edited and rewritten until they're perfect - really does get everything life throws at them? Neither film ends up with a clear picture of where life may take either of these young men, yet I've never really stopped to wonder about what happened to them down the road. I trust that they both are on the right path to working out their issues, and that their hearts will guide them in their pursuits as they move forward.

I identify so much with both of these young men, and I mentioned earlier that they're the kind of people I strive to be in my life. But I don't want to be the versions of Lloyd and Max we see in these films, I want to be the better people they grow up to be. I want to be the version of Lloyd Dobler who has learned that he can't just focus on Diane, but can give her love and attention while still succeeding in his dreams. I want to be the version of Max that has learned he has to focus on meeting the needs of others sometimes, and who is able to balance that with his own pursuits for enrichment and achievement. I want to be the best things about both of these men, and live with the same confidence and vigor that they possess.

Some might say it's unrealistic to try to be the perfect version of two fictional perfectionists, the same way people said it was unrealistic for both of these men to work toward the goals they have. I get that. But I think Lloyd Dobler and Max Fischer would be proud of me, or any person who views their films, for being willing to tackle life with the same confidence and spirit that they show.

There's a saying out there that suggest that "if you shoot for the moon, you'll land among the stars." Iconic football coach Vince Lombardi summed that up differently by saying "Perfection is unattainable, but if we strive for perfection we will catch excellence." Lloyd and Max might not have known that was what they were doing, and dreamers like me or any of you readers who have an adventurous heart might not know it either. As we head into a new year, as everyone is striving to better themselves and meet new goals and change their lives in a positive way, it's nice to have characters out there who show us what we can do if we don't allow ourselves to be defeated as we chase our dreams. 

Lloyd and Max might not be perfect, but they fight for what they want. Those of us who want something better out of our life could do much worse than following their lead. That's what this double feature represents to me, two people who won't put anything less than their best into the things they love and two people who won't stop fighting for what they want out of life. I truly love that about them, and I think you will too.