An excellent portrayal of the last year or so in the life of Rocky Dennis (played by Eric Stoltz), a teenager who lives with a hideously deformed face as the result of a rare disease. This is a movie that you cannot help but be pulled in by. It's funny in places, emotional virtually all the way through and bittersweet at the end. Rocky clearly had challenges to overcome - and not all of them revolved around his face. His mom Rusty (Cher) has a drug problem and has a poor relationship with her own parents, and he spends his time hanging out mostly with a rather tough looking group of bikers, at least some of whom are also into drugs. And yet, this is his world, and - for all their problems - these people are his family; they're the ones who accept him and love him unconditionally and look out for him. Seeing this relationship with the bikers (and especially the voiceless Dozer, played by Dennis Burkley) is almost as fascinating as anything else in the movie. Rocky has been told he doesn't have much time to live, but he does have dreams: a bike trip to Europe with a friend, and he wants to fall in love with someone. It's almost as if the dreams keep him going. He goes to a summer camp for blind children as a counsellor, and falls in love with Diana (Laura Dern) - a beautiful but blind girl who's able to see the beauty inside him. But then he goes home, and it all falls apart. His friend moves to Michigan, and the dream of Europe is gone; his new girlfriend's parents don't want her to have anything to do with him, and his dream of love is gone. With his dreams shattered, there's not much left for Rocky to look forward to. The shattering of his dreams is perfectly depicted by the scene in which he pulls the tacks off the map of Europe where he's been marking all the places he wanted to visit. You know it's happening, but the scene when his mom goes into his room and finds him dead in bed still can't help but put a few tears in your eyes.<br /><br />Director Peter Bogdanovich took a chance on casting Cher. She really didn't have much acting experience in 1985, but she pulled the part off very well (although given the circumstances in which Rusty lived, I thought Cher looked a little too good for the role.) Stoltz was convincing as Rocky, and Laura Dern was completely believable as the blind girl who falls head over heels in love with Rocky. Overall, though, I thought perhaps the strongest performance was Sam Elliott's as Rusty's sometime lover Gar. He looked the part, sounded the part and acted the part brilliantly.<br /><br />Apparently the movie takes a few liberties with Rocky's story. From what I understand, Diana didn't actually exist (although some think she may have been a composite of several girls in Rocky's life) and, while touching, the closing scene, where Rusty, Gar and Dozer visit the cemetery and Dozer puts flowers on the grave, is also a creation - Rocky's body was donated for medical research. There is no grave. Still, you can't help but be deeply moved by this absolutely engrossing story. It's well worth 9/10.