John Hughes seems to have created his own genre. Nearly everyone growing up in the 1980s can relate to one or more of Hughes' films. They all had a distinctive voice and feel, and more than that, they tend to all have a similar cast. Hughes found actors he liked and he used them over and over. Molly Ringwald must have been the first call he made whenever he finished a script.

All of the Hughes films seemed to touch on real and identifiable elements of teenage life. Perhaps this is why his films hold up so well, even if they look dated. Teenagers today, and likely teenagers for the rest of eternity will face the sorts of emotional crisis the Hughes teens face.

Pretty In Pink is not one of my favorite Hughes films, but it's still not a bad little flick. Molly Ringwald stars as Andie, a girl from the "wrong" side of the tracks. She attends a school where her classmates are predominantly from the right side of the tracks. These kids spend a great deal of time teasing Andie for her second-hand, home-made outfits. Andie, meanwhile, has a crush on one of the rich kids, Blane (Andrew McCarthy).

Blane is also attracted to Andie and in one of the film's many real moments, he enters the record (yes, record -- this is the mid-80s, remember) store where Andie works and tries to work up the courage to ask her out. Failing not only at asking her out, but even at creating captivating small talk, Blane winds up buying a Steve Lawrence album and rushing out of the store.

Also pining for Andie is her best friend, Duckie (Jon Cryer). Duckie is one of those kids who cultivates oddness as a defense mechanism. The stranger he acts, the more he can pretend he doesn't care about rejection. He measures his affection for a girl by the number of times he'll ride his bike in front of her house in a given day. Andie's house if the object of frequent ride-by's. It may as well be a second home for Duckie.

Eventually, Blane manages to ask Andie out on a date, much to the dismay of Duckie. This also causes concern among Blane's friends, who think he's slumming and lowering himself by association with Andie. This creates the ultimate tension in the film as both Blane and Andie experience peer pressure from all sides.

Kudos must be given to the film for not resorting to cheap shots in driving a wedge between the couple. A lesser film might have an old girlfriend come on to Blane and have Andie find out about it, or used some other false crisis that only works in the movies. Here it just plain boils down to self doubt. Blane wants to be with Andie, but he's afraid of the implications. It doesn't help that his slimy friend, Steff (James Spader), angry at being rejected by Andie, tries to convince Blane that friendship is more important, especially where some poor chick is concerned.

Andie, meanwhile, tries to cope as best as she can with a flawed support system. Her father (Harry Dean Stanton) is a wreck, never having recovered when his wife, Andie's mother, left the family. Andie's boss a the record store, Iona (Annie Potts), is an eccentric woman in her mid-30s who seems to still wish she were Andie's age. Iona flits through the film sporting one crazy outfit after another in the way a teenager will try on new outfits as a way of trying out new identities. Andie keeps coming to Iona for advice about love and one has to wonder about the wisdom of this given the stories Iona tells.

Now, it doesn't take much to see how this film will turn out. So, if the film is predictable, then it must rely on characters and situations to pull it through and both of these have always been John Hughes' strengths. If the characters seem cliche, it's only because they reflect what real teens are like. These are kids with emotions and fears that we can all relate to and this is what gives heart and credibility to a film that could easily have been bland and forgettable.