Synopsis
Nerdy high schooler Ronald Miller rescues cheerleader Cindy Mancini from parental punishment after she accidentally destroys her mother's designer clothes. Ronald agrees to pay for the $1,000 outfit on one condition: that she will act as though they're a couple for an entire month. As the days pass, however, Cindy grows fond of Ronald, making him popular. But when Ronald's former best friend gets left behind, he realizes that social success isn't everything.
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Cast
- Patrick DempseyRonald Miller
- Amanda PetersonCindy Mancini
- Courtney GainsKenneth Wurman
- Tina CasparyBarbara
- Seth GreenChuckie Miller
- Sharon FarrellMrs. Mancini
- Darcy DeMossPatty
- Dennis DuganDavid Miller
- Cloyce MorrowJudy Miller
- Devin DeVasquezIris
Recommendations
- 60
Empire
Nice performances, a useful script and a dignified ending all boost this film's appeal, but it is the workable simplicity of the premise that really does it. - 50
The New York Times
Can't Buy Me Love has an identity crisis that's a mirror-image of Ronald's own. He thinks he wants popularity at any price, though he's really a sincere guy. The film thinks it wants to be sincere, when all it truly wants is to be popular, just like the other kids' movies, so it sells off its originality. - 50
Time Out London
The director has a feel for this shopping-with-Mummy's- plastic milieu, but the theme of peer group pressure and the almost universal human need for acceptance is compromised by a script of very Californian piety. Otherwise a slight but not unenjoyable movie. - 50
Chicago Tribune
Though it looks bright and the young actors have a couple of sweet moments, the picture is almost unremittingly punishing, hammering home its "be yourself" message with all the gentle persuasiveness of a Marine drill sergeant. - 50
Miami Herald
The movie isn't terribly well written, and the acting is rarely more than OK, but there's one character who brightens the screen. Seth Green plays Ronald's pain-in-the-neck kid brother Chuckie, and he's as droll as Frankie and Annette's kid in Back to the Beach. [14 Aug 1987, p.D5] - 40
Washington Post
A John Hughes movie without Pretty in Pink director John Hughes, sure makes you appreciate the teens' auteur. Frankly, Steve Rash, who directs this copycat comedy, another nerd-gets-the-cheerleader romance, isn't fit to wear Hughes' hightops. Rash only tinkers with adolescent angst, without the progenitor's empathy for his audience. - 40
TV Guide Magazine
The problem with Can't Buy Me Love is that too often characters do and say things teenagers wouldn't. At times this is a funny, touching film, but more often it isn't. - 40
Los Angeles Times
There's a moral to the new teen movie Can't Buy Me Love: Money can't buy popularity. But it seems to have been lost on the movie makers themselves. What are they doing here but trying to spend their way to audience approval, success and glory? The plot is another one-sentence gimmick, the jokes juvenile, the morality a sham.
