I rewatched it, and I still can't square the last ten minutes of the movie with certain moments before. There's a nice point when Alana is watching Gary and his teenage entourage pantomime sex with gas cans and Alana realizes how young and juvenile they all are. This is the moment she decides to volunteer for the mayor candidate and grow up a bit. Also don't quite get how the discovery of the mayor candidate's homosexuality would trigger her to go running back to Gary in a moment of punch-drunk love. I get the idea PTA wants us to be throwing our fist up in the sky with joy like Bender in The Breakfast Club for our couple, but instead I'm always left with a "hmmm .. ok ... I guess?" response to the ending.
It's too bad since I think 90% of this is really great. So many great side performances. The woman who plays Alana's agent is amazing. Even the guy with the Japanese wives is great. I know it's problematic but I admit I laughed at how ridiculous he is. He's not even racist in a mean spirited way, he's just a clueless weirdo, but that's also accurate for the time. Seems like Los Angeles in the '70s was pretty ignorant of East Asian culture, to the point where no one knew anything about Japanese cuisine. I'm sure people assumed it was the same as Chinese food.
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