No Small Affair

By Marshall Fine

Jon "I'm Not Matthew Broderick!" Cryer had what appeared to be a breakthrough role in this diverting but inconsequential romantic comedy. (Still, once you've broken through, you need to follow up, something Cryer didn't manage.) In fact, it proved to be more of a springboard for its other star, a then-little-known soap-opera star named Demi Moore. Cryer plays a high-school photographer with a colossal crush on a budding female rock star (Moore). She thinks he's cute--like a puppy--but he thinks her interest indicates the kind of romantic longing only a teenage boy would fantasize about with an older woman. Still, when her love life tanks, this eager beaver is there to console her, thoroughly misreading her intentions. What wit this film has springs from Cryer's kinetic, fast-talking performance as the kind of perpetually wise-cracking kid that was Broderick's stock-in-trade at that point. Otherwise, it's the kind of story only an adolescent male would find believable and moving.

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