Pretty in Pink (1986)

Andie Walsh: After a brief fling, Andie and Blane break up. Andie moves to France to study fashion, only to find that it is 1990 and her garish dresses are not only the least popular things in Paris, but also some of the most vomited upon. Unable to find gainful employment, Andie lives on the streets for a few years, picking up a little money doing caricatures of tourists but sustaining mostly on bread from trashcans and expired cheese. She saves up enough money to come back to America, where she meets up with Steff (see below), whom she can no longer deny. The are married and have five kids: Two are douchebags, two are middling tennis players, and one is a deaf-mute named Trigg.

Blane McDonnagh: The summer of 1986 was good to Blane. Dating his best girl, Blane was on top of the world. He had forsaken his world of money and country clubs, white tuxedos and sports cars to date a down-to-earth, working class girl. However, his friends and family soon abandoned him, and having planned to live on his trust fund and therefore unprepared to find work with a high school diploma, Blane found himself penniless and alone. Depressed and able to cry at the drop of a hat (seriously, this guy cries when the bathroom is running low on toilet paper), Blane proves to be too much for Andie, who dumps him. Blane moves to Hollywood to pursue a writing career. His heartfelt script, I Left My Heart in My Benz, becomes a semi-hit in the fall of 1989, and Blane enjoys a stream of moderately successful movies before the world learns that he is in fact a man. Audiences stay away from his next feature, Vaginal Diaries,and Blane now lives in seclusion in New Mexico.

Jack Walsh: Dead. Suicide. That bit about getting over his wife? He faked it.

Duckie: Duckie had a great prom night. He lost his virginity to the drunk blond who mistook him for Steff's slightly less attractive cousin, Pucky. The next morning, after realizing what she has done, said blond slaps Duckie so hard, his hair momentarily comes unstuck. With the pain of 18 years of lies coming over him, Duckie blurts out "I'm gay!" and moves to California, where he meets the man of his dreams, Goosie. They live happily together in San Francisco.

Steff: Steff has a rough time after prom. After Blane chooses a poor girl over being his friend, Steff calls into question his entire world view. He attends Yale in the fall, but only reluctantly. He has a string of one night stands with loose women, but all the while wondering if he's right. He takes a job at his father's company following college, but only with strong, never-spoken-aloud reservations. Three years into his job, he hires a PI to track down the one girl who got away, Andie Walsh. Upon learning that she has returned to America, he tracks her down and admits he loves her. He promises to fund a clothing line for her, and she agrees to marry him. Steff realizes that having money is awesome.

Iona: Dead. Untreated staph infection.

Unofficial movie epilogues: The birth of a nation

I watch a lot of movies. But recently, after watching "Pretty in Pink," I got to wondering: Where are these characters now? Sure, it's great that Andie and Blane were able to overcome their awful names and find love, but could that high school romance really last? And what about Duckie? Am I to believe that a life of awkwardness is completely turned around because a blond decided to dance with him at the prom? I'm willing to suspend a great deal of disbelief at the movie theater, but I don't think Duckie became a ladies' man after graduating. In fact, I don't believe many of these characters had happy endings at all.

And that brings us to a new blog: Unofficial movie epilogues. Here, I will speculate where the characters in movies I've recently watched are now, given the date in which the movie is set. If the movie is "present day" or thereabouts, I will go from the movie's release date. Hence, Pretty in Pink is 1986. Where are these kids now, 23 years later? These questions and more to follow in the days, weeks, and months (years?) ahead.