Maggie Carey
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Connections, in both directions
While we're used to seeing movies about boys wanting to "get busy" -- be that in the likes of the "American Pie" or "Porky's" franchises and many others of their ilk -- it's far rarer to find ones about girls as the aggressive leads.
But what really sets this film apart from nearly every other teenage sex comedy ever made, from “Porky’s” to “American Pie” to “Superbad,” is that this isn’t about some dude trying to get laid.
Then again, she’s aiming more for a girls’ take on “The Last American Virgin” or “American Pie,” a low bar to straddle.
It doesn't matter if it's a classic film like "The Summer of '42" or a broad comedy like "American Pie," there's one key ingredient in a coming-of-age movie: You have to like the person who's facing the big moment.
Because so many boys have done it so boldly, reveling in their risky business and risqué language — a low bar set long ago by the likes of "American Pie" and "Porky's" — the girls were overdue for some score-settling.
Such cinematic rites of passage range from the cleverly inspired — Easy A — to the inane — Porky's.
The latter also applies to the dialogue, usually a strong point for such films ("Juno," "Easy A," etc.) that revolve around girls and social pressures.
"The To Do List" is a much raunchier distant cousin to 2010's irresistibly funny and wise Emma Stone-starrer " Easy A ," the two films pretty much the only teen sex comedies in memory told from a female's perspective.
The results are reminiscent of “Easy A,” another raunchy sex comedy that acted as a showcase for Emma Stone, but the fact that Plaza, who is in her mid-20s, can pull off playing a teen girl in all her confusion and neuroses is a testament to this really being her movie through and through.
No, i.e. when Brandy flatulates or bites into a turd, but the vast majority of them do work which is more than could be said for any American comedy since Easy A. It's also very quotable.
In premise alone, “The To Do List” contains some mild similarities to the 2010 Emma Stone vehicle “Easy A,” in which Stone’s character merely pretended to turn into the school’s village bicycle.
Though Carey tries to invest the outre merriment with some legitimate emotional stakes, the movie never really connects on that level in the way of the similar-themed “Superbad” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” or the best Farrelly brothers romps, because none of the secondary characters have been endowed with distinctive personalities of their own.
Rachel Bilson (2008's " Jumper ") is brazenly acerbic yet real as Brandy's engaged college-aged sister Amber.
Not long after reuniting with Millie (Rachel Bilson, The To Do List ), David is nearly killed by a group of assassins called the Paladins.
The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig
influenced by The To Do List (2013)
Themes Characters
And while its tone is closer to the earnestness of John Hughes’ 1980s films than the bawdy zingers and pratfalls of Mean Girls or The To Do List , The Edge of Seventeen finds humour in a specifically feminine flavour of rage, yearning and humiliation.
She’s a pure product of the digital age, though she has a depth that the heroines of films like “Easy A” or “The To Do List” did not.
And Bill Hader (2011's " Paul "), as unpredictableand homelesspool manager Willy, is very good as he rises above an initial caricature and develops an unlikely friendship with Brandy.