Headscratchers / Sixteen Candles

• It's just a movie.. it's just a movie... Speaking as a parent, how on EARTH could you forget your sixteen year old daughter's birthday? When they scheduled the wedding with the church someone must have gone "Hey, that's the day after Samantha's birthday!" Heck, my kids mention the fact that their birthday is coming up several times in the month leading up to it! Drop hints about what presents they want!
  • My family forgot my 16th birthday. At 11 o'clock that night my mom made brownies with icing with what candles she could find and called me to the kitchen to apologize for forgetting. There was no excuse. No big happenings going on. Everyone just forgot. It happens.
  • I think it's because everyone thought they were planning a Shotgun Wedding. So both families were rushing to get Ginny and her boyfriend married because of an implied pregnancy without really thinking of what else may be going on around that time.
• How in the hell can Jake be so nonchalant about his house being completely trashed during the party?! This isn't just a few spilled beer cans and a broken vase, this is the whole outside toilet papered, his (presumably parents') record and cassette player broken, the curtains ruined by graffiti, a huge hole made in his living room floor, several wine racks toppling over and shattering dozens of bottles, and who knows what else?! Compare this to something like Risky Business, where the main character went through hell just to keep his home in pristine order while his parents were away, it's incredibly jarring.
  • You could assume that this isn't the first time this has happened - Jake says "look what Caroline did to my house" in such a blasé manner, you can infer that this isn't the first house-trashing he's had to deal with. Maybe he has cleaners and repair contractors on speed-dial or something.
  • Jake's Dad owns a Rolls-Royce. And that's not even the only car in the house. Pretty sure we're supposed to think Jake's family is rather well off indeed and can replace whatever's been damaged fairly easily.
• Are Jake and Ted friends? Like childhood/neighbors/little league/Ted's big brother and Jake were friends whatever outside of school friends? Ted screams Jake's name like he genuinely knows him and knows he will help him. After Jake saves Ted from the glass coffee table they have the greatest friend vibes in this whole movie? Just talking about girls while Ted makes martinis in the kitchen. Setting aside the violating Caroline stuff afterwards that scene in the kitchen is great.
  • They were no doubt aware of each other; Shermer High seems like the typical suburban high school where everyone kind of vaguely knows about most of the other kids to some degree. Especially a popular kid like Jake would probably be known to most of the student body, and as for Ted, well, he does tend to stand out with his headgear and general weirdness. Everyone in high school knows the weirdo losers, even if they stay far away from them. As for how well they get along, it's one of the points of the movie, for all its flaws; that for all the seemingly ironclad differences that keeps the various high school cliques separate, they are both just young guys trying to figure out the world around them and have a lot more in common then they would have expected. And in the end, they both learn something from each other; Jake learns that he can be open about his desire for a real relationship regardless of what anyone else thinks, and Ted realizes that he doesn't have to try so hard. Which is kind of undercut by the Caroline thing, but yeah.
• Ok, but what the hell was up with Samantha's grandmother wanting to grope her breasts? It comes totally out of nowhere and is never mentioned again, and no explanation is given for it at all. Sam seems fairly disgusted with it but nowhere near as shocked as one would expect.
  • Some grandmothers really are just that weird. One of mine included, I would not have been surprised if she had done that to me as a teen. And it was probably included just to show how much of a whacko and out of touch Sam's grandparents were, that they (and her!) thought it strange but not inappropriate behavior.