The Sure Thing

Here’s a whole lot of people very early in their careers. It was Rob Reiner’s second movie, after This is Spinal Tap. Daphne Zuniga was 19, Anthony Edwards was 23, Tim Robbins was 27 but looked a lot younger. All of them were playing 19-year-old college students. Then there was John Cusack, and a bit of a puzzle. Wiki says he was only 16, and had to get emancipated and have a legal guardianship. But it also lists his birthday as 1966, which would make him also 19. Well, whatever. It was his first starring role.

This is a road movie in the manner of It Happened One Night. John and Daphne naturally start off hating each other, as is traditional, and you know they will get together in the end. So the question becomes, is the trip interesting and funny? It is, though the inevitability of the genre does take away some of the sparkle.