Plot

A group of four teenage girls come of age in the asphalt desert of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley arranged with a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.

Four best friends, with four different personalities, have issues of their own. Deidre is fascinated by her sexuality and has many boyfriend problems. Madge is unhappily overweight and has overprotective parents. Annie boozes and does drugs, and runs away from her abusive father, a policeman. Jeanie has to take care of them and is fighting with her divorced mother. The only way to loosen up, and forget all the bad things happening in their lives, is to party and have fun. Jeanie is ready to grow up and wants to stop acting like a child. Annie is the worst of them all and Jeanie is worried about her the most. She risks her neck more than once trying to keep Annie clean and free from trouble. However, Annie's unstable behavior and flare ups keeps everyone on edge.—MGM/UA Home Video

Sixteen year olds Jeanie, Annie, Madge and Deirdre are friends and high school classmates living in middle class suburban Los Angeles, they individually and collectively who are trying to navigate through the transition into adulthood and the want to stake their independence under the varying levels of adult guidance - mostly without - they currently have. They collectively see that next step of independence as living together without any adult supervision. Living with her divorced mother Mary who has returned to college in trying to stake her own independence from Jeanie's concert promoter father Bryan, Jeanie is the mother hen of the group whose house is the sanctuary for the four. She is evaluating the status of her three year relationship to boyfriend Scott as she considers college in her accelerated studies. Annie, who has to contend with the iron fist of her abusive police officer father, has become the wild child, often running away and running to casual sex, drugs and staying out all night, with Brad, a former classmate who dropped out in the need to work, steadfastly by her side even when she's with other males. Madge is the one still closest to childhood in being the least experienced, sexual or otherwise. She has yet to tell anyone the extent of her relationship to Jay, he well out of his teens, the two purportedly in love. And Deirdre is the flirt who is stringing along a few boys.—Huggo

A group of four teenage girls in the San Fernando Valley during the late 1970s have painful emotional problems. Deirdre (Kandice Stroh) is a disco queen who is fascinated by her sexuality, likes boys and has many relationship troubles. Madge (Marilyn Kagan) is a bookworm who is unhappily overweight and angry that she is still a virgin. Her parents are overprotective, and she has an annoying younger sister. Annie (Cherie Currie) is a teenage runaway who drinks, uses drugs, and runs away from her abusive police officer father. Jeanie (Jodie Foster) feels she has to take care of them all, is fighting with her divorced mother who cycles through dissimilar boyfriends and is yearning for a closer relationship with her distant father, a tour manager for the rock band Angel.

The girls believe school is a waste of time, their boyfriends are immature, and that they are alienated from the adults in their lives. All four seem immersed in the decadence of the late 1970s. (The adults in this film seem to be involved in the crazy nature of the era as well.) The only way for them to loosen up and forget the bad things happening in their lives is to party and have fun. Unfortunately, Annie is the least responsible, while Jeanie is ready to grow up and wants to stop acting like a child. Jeanie is most worried about Annie and continually takes risks trying to keep Annie clean and safe. Annie's unstable behavior keeps everyone on edge, and finally leads to her death in an automobile accident.

Fortunately, after the accident, Annie's untimely death brings changes for the rest of the girls. Madge marries Jay (Randy Quaid), an older man with whom she first had sex, Deirdre no longer behaves crazy with boys, and Jeanie graduates from high school and is about to begin moving away to college. After Madge and Jay's wedding, Jeanie visits Annie's grave and smokes a cigarette. With a smile, she muses that Annie wanted to be buried under a pear tree, "not in a box or anything", so that each year her friends could come by, have a pear and say, "Annie's tastin' good this year, huh?".