Say Anything...

Fox Network | Release Date: April 4, 1989

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

86	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 19 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Staff (Not Credited)

It all comes down to one scene: John Cusack, standing at dusk, boom box aloft, blaring Peter Gabriel's ''In Your Eyes'' outside Ione Skye's window. This, friends, is what rapturous, heartrending, soul-spinning love is all about. Read full review

100

Jonathan Rosenbaum

"Heathers" may view teenagers more caustically, but this movie, incomparably better, actually delivers the goods. Read full review

100

Brad Laidman

To me, Say Anything is without a shadow of a doubt the most rewarding, funny, and likable romance of the last twenty years. It heralds the decency of romantic love against the gears of a cold, grinding mechanical world. Read full review

100

Roger Ebert

That such intelligence could be contained in a movie that is simultaneously so funny and so entertaining is some kind of a miracle. Read full review

Sheila Benson

A film of warmth, insight, humor and surprising originality… [It] isn't perfect, but when it's good, which is every moment John Cusack is on screen, it's a living joy. And when it's not-so-good--earthbound and not inventive enough--it s till almost single-handedly redeems the breed. [14 April 1989]

Hal Hinson

It's hard to remember a recent love story -- maybe "Moonstruck" -- that's as involving as this one. This is not to suggest that the two movies are in the same league, but this is a teen movie that transcends its teen limitations. Read full review

Julie Salamon

[Crowe] knows how to shape a scene and he's never cheap with characterization; adults are permitted to be as complex as their children; a rare event in pictures. [18 May 1989, p.A14(E)]

Movie NationRoger Moore

What makes Say Anything timeless isn’t the cast so much as it is the characters, and isn’t the story as much as the way it is told. The dialogue, crisp and (relatively) clean by modern, coarse and cliched standards, is its own “grand romantic gesture,” teen angst, teen curiosity and the teen dilemma incarnate. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Cusack invests such sincerity in his portrayal of Lloyd that it's impossible not to root for him to get the girl. He's the classic underdog that we all think of ourselves as -- earnest, engaging, and impossible to resist because of his flaws, rather than in spite of them. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Complex, knotty and at times even uncomfortable; its world has a weight and heft that makes its ultimate romanticism seem genuinely transcendant, genuinely magical. [14 April 1989]

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Seldom have such complexity, emotional depth, honesty, and realism been invested in what is ostensibly a teen love story. Read full review

Pauline Kael

John Cusack and Mahoney have to carry the unconvincing melodramatic portion of the plot, but they carry it stunningly. [15 May 1989]

EmpireCaroline Westbrook

Avoiding the 80s staple of angsty adolescence, Crowe has constructed an intelligent, witty yet undeniably cute tale, showing the potential that would be realised in Singles and Jerry Maguire, and giving Cusack's warm-hearted Lloyd the perfect foil in Skye's prissy model of student perfection. Read full review

Tom Green

Crowe has invented a fresh character in Lloyd Dobler, and Cusack has invested him with an ingratiating persona that helps avert disaster when things become a bit melodramatic in the final resolution. [14 April 1989]

Mick LaSalle

More than the standard, cranked-out genre piece. Its characters linger in your mind, and the quality of its actors lift the movie into another league. [14 April 1989]

Rick Groen

With his breathy, antic delivery, pouring out his heart in staccato bursts, Cusack puts a nice loop on the sensitive teen theme. For his is an upbeat, mature brand of sensitivity, the healthy kind that makes fine discriminations, not nasty judgments. Read full review

Kirk Honeycutt

Say Anything is an easy film to like. Ex-rock journalist Cameron Crowe, known for two screenplays about teenagers caught up in the fast lane, has written and directed (for the first time) a surprisingly gentle comedy about teens that concerns itself with values and love. Read full review

Caryn James

The predictable surface of Say Anything is constantly being cracked by characters who think and talk like real people and by John Cusack's terrifically natural, appealing Lloyd. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

A half-baked love story, full of good intentions but uneven in the telling. Read full review