Modern Day Lloyd Dobler

"I've tried to keep from feeling all the things I'm feeling" - George Duke, I Love You More [buy the album] I'd never seen Say Anything before the wee hours of today. I know. Shut up, I know! I'm probably one of the very select few whose formative years were in the eighties who hasn't seen the film. And I mean, like never seen it. I know the still image of John Cusack holding his boom box over his head in his trenchcoat and tennis shoes but that's it. Every single moment of this film was fresh to me. I didn't even realize it was a Cameron Crowe movie until the credits rolled. The only reason I'm watching it now is because a friend said to me, "You're like the modern-day Lloyd Dobler" and I was struck by that. I understood it was a compliment. I've heard the Lloyd Dobler reference since high school. Not bandied at me necessarily but as that "guy". Well, Lili Taylor's character says he's not a guy, he's a man but I get it. All of Lloyd Dobler's friends are girls. Lloyd has a reputation for being the great guy even though he's a little off. He just wants people to be happy, to choose to be happy. And, he just wants the girl. That girl. The perfect girl. Now, whether or not Ione Skye is that girl is up for debate. She's smart and sort of interesting but her mouth is distracting. It's like her jaw is slightly disconnected from the rest of her face, leaving her in this kind of eternal pout and suggests that she's some kind of weird mouth-breather. But, okay, Lloyd is all about her and won't suffer those who might doubt her charms. He won't even suffer his own doubts when she returns to him. He only wants to love her. To see his value reflected in her appreciation of him. But here's the thing - to Diane Cort he seems disposable. While he's willing to leave everything in his life to follow her, she is unwilling to do that for him. In fact, she only realizes his worth when she needs him, needs someone to cling to as her perfect world crumbles around her. When he showed her his heart, she gave him a pen. When she shows him her needs, he tries to give her the world. When he's driving around town talking into his tape recorder pitying his predicament, I get everything he's saying. "I'll be a pushover no longer" he's saying with all the bluster he can muster but he knows it's not true. In the end, he will sacrifice more of himself in order to make her happy because his own joy is intertwined in others, her in particular, feeling good around him. Because of him. He needs that validation. It's the only thing that matters. I can relate.