Tim M
It's no secret: Secret Admirer is about as contrived and misled as teen comedies get.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
12/17/24
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justin r
Likeable teen comedy with some good moments lead by a talented young cast. ** 1/2 out of ****.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
Never get tired of this 80's gem.All the performances are great in this,especially by Fred Ward who is a riot in this.The theme song No Secrets by Van Stephenson was great too.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
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euler n
Surprisingly fun. Teens, high school, parties, comedy, romance, Los Angeles, pop-rock, eighties. Not genial, but above average for the genre.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
It looks like Lori Loughlin got her start in forging letters and deception earlier than we realized. The story amounts to a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, but instead of a huge honkered hero, the face behind the words belongs to the undeniably gorgeous Loughlin, who, for some reason, all the other characters deny is gorgeous. That said, I do like the basic idea and setting of Cyrano in high school; though if they remade it today, the letters would be replaced with DMs—maybe they could call it SIRI KNOWS. 🤥
At least it features Doug Benson as an extra in a couple scenes.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
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Audience Member
Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell) is a high school student who receives an anonymous love letter. Michael is obsessed with Deborah Ann Fimple (Kelly Preston), the class beauty, and his best friend, Roger (Casey Siemaszko), convinces him that the letter is from her. However, he is totally oblivious that his friend Toni Williams (Lori Loughlin) is in love with him. Michael writes Deborah Ann an anonymous love letter in return, and asks Toni to give it to her. Toni reads the letter and realizing it's poorly written and unromantic (since Michael had copied words from greeting cards), she rewrites it. Elizabeth Fimple (Leigh Taylor-Young), Deborah Ann's mother, discovers the letter. Her jealous police officer husband, Lou Fimple (Fred Ward), sees her reading it. He steals the letter, and believes that his wife is having an affair. He suspects his neighbor (and bridge partner) George Ryan. George also reads the letter (although by mistake) because Lou's wife is his night school teacher and it somehow ends up in his book. When George asks her about it, he assumes she wants to have an affair with him, despite the fact his wife and she are friends. Meanwhile, Lou shows the letter to George's wife, Connie, and proposes that they expose the adulterers. Receiving no response from Deborah Ann, Michael writes a second letter, which Toni again rewrites. Michael experiences a series of wacky adventures with his friends throughout the summer before his Senior year in High School. After Toni arranges a meeting between the two, he tells Deborah Ann that he wrote the love letters, and she finally agrees to a real date, during which they are almost caught by Debbie's jock college "quasi boyfriend" Steve (Scott McGinnis), but Toni intervenes by pretending to seduce him and later ditches him. After a short while Michael realizes Deb is snobby and shallow, not like he expected her to be and begins to realize his true feelings for Toni...
In a negative review, Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the initial concept might have sounded good. Maslin called Fred Ward the film's "sole ray of sunshine". Time Out London compared it negatively to French sex farces and said that it offers no insights. TV Guide rated it 1/5 stars and wrote, "This cross between theatrical farce and teen sex comedy is a moronic package that liberally insults the intelligence of both its viewing audience and the hapless adult actors locked into career low points." Reviewing the film retrospectively, Sarah D. Bunting of Slant Magazine called it "relatively good", which she defines as "not unwatchable" in terms of teen films.
"Secret Admirer" is a classic 80s charming high school comedy and one of those films I grew up with as a teen which in many ways created a longing for going to an American High School. I did however end up at a university in Australia later on in life, but that´s another story. The plotline is funny and all the situations the letter creates is quite slapsticky, and yes the film is a bit naive as well, however that is ok as the film doesn´t really take itself that seriously. We get all the ingredients you want in a high school comedy and it delivers. Lori Loughlin is prettier than the prettiest and she is the highlight of the film. Who wouldn´t fall madly in love with her? It was a treat to re-see "Secret Admirer" after so many years again.
Trivia: This film was part of an intense, front-page-of-newspapers scandal in Puerto Rico in early March of 2016 when it was revealed that writer/director Eduardo Ortíz had basically plagiarized it almost in its entirety - word-for-word, scene-for-scene, and shot-for-shot - when he did his film Vasos De Papel (2016), and had tried to make everybody believe that the screenplay had been created and written by himself. The film had only been playing at Puerto Rican cinemas for a few days when the first articles pointing out the similarities between the two films, and pointing out that there was no mention anywhere of it being based on 'Secret Admirer', arose. Once the film was no longer being shown in cinemas across Puerto Rico, Mr. Ortíz first issued a statement saying that there were "certain similarities between one film and the other, not plagiarism. Everything is a matter of interpretation". Only a few hours after making that statement, Mr. Ortíz changed it, saying in a radio interview that he "had done something terribly wrong", and apologizing to his cast and crew. Mr. Ortíz had ignored and/or refused to comment on the issue until actress Natalia Lugo, who played the lead on Vasos De Papel (2016), released a statement on social media where she both condemned the film and expressed the embarrassment she felt when she saw 'Secret Admirer', and came to understand how she and her fellow actors and crew had been duped.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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