For Keeps?

For Keeps is an intriguing movie that succeeds in creating believable characters, keeping them alive, and steering them more or less safely past the cliches that are inevitable with this kind of material. It’s a movie with heart, and that compensates for a lot of the predictability.

Most of For Keeps is entirely predictable, but that should do little to diminish its interest for audiences of high-school age. Here again, Miss Ringwald is the very model of teen-age verisimilitude, and she's most impressive in making even the most hackneyed situations seem real.

For Keeps is schizoid entertainment. It begins as a comedy, shifts briefly into social commentary and winds up in soap opera land, with Ringwald acting nobly and self-sacrificing. The movie has been heralded as a sign of Hollywood's new maturity, because the kids face up to their situation. That is applaudable, but For Keeps is old-fashioned and obvious. It is to teen pregnancy what My Three Sons was to family life. [15 Jan 1988, p.C5]

Nice try, spermatozoa. You look forlornly out of place in this make- believe version of reality, where pregnancy intrudes on those well placed to cope with it, and moral issues are fudged wherever possible. [15 Jan 1988]

Almost any movie with Molly Ringwald at its centerpiece has a built-in plus to it. The wonder about For Keeps is that not even Ringwald's customary glow and bedrock believability make a smidgen of difference. Muddled it is and muddled it remains.

The film is full of carefully balanced moral proclamations, to the point where it begins to resemble an episode of "Nightline." [15 Jan 1988, p.B]

The film is carelessly directed, paced, acted, and scripted, offering today's teenagers, at best, a confused message. Foremost among its endless problems is Avildsen's pathetic direction. Under his uninspired guidance, the actors appear to be performing in filmed rehearsals, guilty of glaring character inconsistencies from one scene to the next. The cliche-ridden story throws in every possible obstacle to the young couple's happiness.