The plot: On the eve of their senior prom, Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) make a pact that they will each lose their virginity on the night of the prom. However, Julie's mother Lisa (Leslie Mann), Kayla's father Mitchell (John Cena) and Sam's father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) discover the pact and set out to stop their daughters from making a terrible mistake. But as the night carries on, they start to question who is truly making the terrible mistake in this situation: Their children or themselves.
Cena has become more meme than flesh-and-blood
human, to the point of regularly being met in the screenings I attend with a
hearty vocal blaring of his entrance theme from at least one chucklehead in the
audience. I have grown a certain quiet dread of seeing this guy on the big
screen as a result of that, but at the same time, the man knows how to channel
that ring-side charisma to the world of cinema and this is no exception.
Basically embodying all things worryingly masculine in the parental mindset,
his aptitude with physical humour and butt-chugging is matched by his misguided
but ultimately concerned care for his daughter, letting the audience sympathise
on a certain level and laugh at his impudence on another.
Same goes for Mann as
the feminine side of that coin, taking well-meaning worry about her daughter
repeating her own youthful mistakes and steering it down some very low-key dark
territory, all without letting the humour in her dialogue weigh it down at any
point. Barinholtz is straight-up amazing in this thing as the
frequently-ignored voice of reason, not only serving as a relatively-sane
middle ground between his co-stars, but absolutely nailing the more emotional moments. His character makes mistakes too,
same as the others, but he definitely has a better handle on how to treat these
situations than the other two.
Newton works very well here, with her and Graham Phillips
making for the kind of insanely cute couple that helps highlight that maybe
romance isn’t quite as dead as we think. Viswanathan definitely feels like the
offspring of Cena in how forthright and in-control she comes across, and her
handling of the character makes her place in the central trio feel like it has
a distinct purpose. But honestly, out of everyone here, the true highlight is
Adlon as Sam. Not only does she represent a very different kind of romance, one
guided by a near-literal lesbian superhero (man, Ramona Young can really rock
that cape), but the way it is handled by her words and her delivery makes it
feel authentic. This is furthered by her scenes next to Barinholtz, which range
from “Dad, you’re embarrassing me” to easily the most heart-squeezing moments
of the entire film. I can only hope that representation this solid means that
we’ll get more Hunters in the world than Mitchells.
This is a fairly familiar premise, particularly for those
like myself who grew up in the early 2000’s: A group of high school teens decide
to lose their virginity before they graduate, likening their introduction to
sex as an important step into adulthood. Hell, this is especially familiar
coming from a studio like Point Grey Pictures, as Seth Rogen’s work on Superbad
is what helped put him on the map and that film also follows this same idea.
However, this is a decidedly different take on that idea of teenagers treating
sex like a big deal that needs to be
undertaken. Under the direction of Kay Cannon, in her directorial debut after
making her mark as the scribe of the Pitch Perfect trilogy, the narrative
initially presents a stark contrast between how this scenario is dealt with
concerning male and female characters. In most sex comedies of this nature, men
get pushed forward to achieve that goal, seeing it as part of their nature and
something that they should embrace. Put the focus on women, and all of a
sudden, that same aptitude for healthy sexual experiences evaporates. What is
left over is a lot of mollycoddling and acting like sex is something a woman
should shy away from, be ashamed for taking part in, or both.
However, this idea is presented with a very clear intent to
prove it wrong. Buried underneath the overall-decent sense of humour at work
here is the mentality that Lisa and Mitchell are very much in the wrong in how
they initiate the plot. Well, not so much in the wrong as letting their natural
parental instincts get the better of them. The traditional mindset of the
caregiver is basically giving up one’s own identity for the sake of bringing
another into fruition; their children become their life, and when it comes time
for those now-grown children to make their own mark, it can feel like part of
themselves is leaving with them. More so than a coming-of-age story for the
teens, it’s a coming-of-age story for the adults, making them re-assess their
values and how much worth they put into their mission of nurturing and
protecting their offspring. Rather than using their individual life experiences
to learn from their mistakes, they only worry about their children repeating
them to the point of veering them towards making all-new mistakes.
A lot of
this is brought to the foreground when Lisa, Mitchell and Hunter run into
Mitchell’s wife Marcie, who then proceeds to lay down some cold brick knowledge
on these people about just how hypocritical this whole idea is. I swear, Sarayu
Blue needs to get more work after this, because the cinematic landscape of
today could use more of this kind of fiery and righteous feminism on the big
screen.
This all ties into the film’s view of sex as a whole, with the
dialogue making some very solid points across the board about how society tends
to treat the act of sex and how much tweaking needs to be undertaken. The
attitude that this film seeks to make an example of, one that makes people
insist on taking a perverse interest in the private actions of others, is the
kind of thing that can have very negative consequences in the real world.
Consequences like taking someone like Sam, a young woman still discovering her
own sexual identity, and trying to make her conform to what the rest of the
world expects her to be like… even if that comes pre-packaged with the same
hypocrisy regarding her sexuality in all its forms.
Between the main three
girls, we get some nice variety as far as depictions of real-world sexual mindsets.
Some know what they want and go after it, some come to the realisation that
they just aren’t ready yet, and some realise that their own tastes differ from
what people consider the ‘norm’. And all three of them are perfectly natural.
It treats sexuality, particularly female sexuality, with an incredible amount
of respect and care, highlighting it as a normal part of human psychology and
not something that needs to be vilified or feared over. It’s progressive in a
way that shows real merit and even a degree of real-world application; this is
what feminism really looks like.
All in all, this marks another home run for Point Grey
Pictures and a very commendable directorial debut for Kay Cannon. The acting is
very good, with the parents getting plenty of laughs out of their misguided
actions and the teens getting a lot of empathy from how much they just want to
live their own lives, the comedy occasionally lands into cringe territory but
ends up paying off more times than not, and the overall approach to questions
of sexuality and parenthood show real clarity and a definite want to address
some rather unfortunate mindsets that still persist today. Knowing that comedy
always involves someone or something
being the butt of the joke, I have real respect for this film making the
attempts to restrain the female libido into that butt.
No comments:
Post a Comment