Of all the John Hughes film endings, Some Kind of Wonderful is almost certainly the most chaotic. As though they’d shot five different scenes and, in a state of either laziness or lunacy, thought “fuck it!” Cut them all together to tie up the final five minutes before the closing credits. Still, I hate to hate on this movie. Truly. Because despite this, it holds up as a mastery of late 80’s cine-magic, features in my opinion one of the best kissing scenes, and — true to coming of age script both on screen and in life — is as much about weaning off parental guidance as it is just, like, Getting The Girl.
“Oh, you’re only 18 years old, for Christ’s sake!” Keith’s dad shouts across the room.
Keith: “Then I'm 19, then I'm 20! When does my life belong to me?”
Rewatching that plaintive scene, it made me think — building a life of one’s own, affirmations of adulthood, appears to be the makeup for most (at least traditional) milestones. Moments we get greedy for — or are enveloped in — that can spark equal part excitement, part anxiety. First love; first pay cheques; leaving home; travelling alone; passing your driving test; turning 20, 30, 40...
But what about the baby milestones? You know, the other firsts that arrived pre-teenagedom? The ones we trivialise. Perhaps even forget the power it held over us at the time (such is the case with memories that have been woefully overwritten with noise, more life experience, miscellaneous sensations). Riding a bike without stabilizers, say, or your first sleepover party, or finally falling in love with a book, living inside its pages from start to the sad finish.
In the early ‘00s, nine years old, I remember very distinctly arranging to speak to a friend after school: my first long-distance play date. I was so nervous, so wanting this experience to be essentially perfect and un-boring, worried there would be gulfs of loud silences to fill, that I strategized, made revision notes and scribbled down every ‘interesting’ topic conversation starter I could think of on Post-it notes. Boxes to tick once I had covered each talking point.
If ever there were rankings of personal growth, honestly this is creeping the top ten. Present me would go back and hug kid-sized me. Tell her it will all be OK. You don’t need the list. You see, pointlessly hanging on the phone these days without any agenda is, as those closest to me will attest, what I deem to be one of life’s most nourishing and immediate of pleasures. The peak of technological communication.
Text message? Too clinical, lacking tenderness, tone far too easily misread. Voice notes? Capacious room to overthink a response. Zoom? Heinous. One phone call with someone you love, comparatively — at its finest — is a mutually involved, meandering experience. Confronting and comforting, mundane and momentous, all at once.
The matter marvellously random. Aimless. Though it would be remiss to ignore a semblance of structure, a sort of code of conduct that differs from person to person — the singular intimacy that is the first exchange.
