A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.
Acting
River Phoenix smolders through every bad decision like it's poetry.
Production
Chicago locations that actually look like 1963, not theme park nostalgia.
Writing
Dialogue that thinks it's smarter than its protagonist — and is.
Director
William Richert
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
River Phoenix filmed this between Stand By Me and Running on Empty, during his brief window as Hollywood's most bankable sensitive boy.
The film bombed because it was marketed as a Porky's-style sex comedy when it's actually a melancholy character study about performance and authenticity.
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