Blockers (2018)
Directed by Kay Cannon
When three parents discover that each of their daughters have a pact to lose their virginity at prom, they launch a covert one-night operation to stop the teens from sealing the deal.
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5 films that influenced Blockers
What critics say influenced Blockers
We have a long history of Hollywood films in which awkward, Superbad high-school-aged boys are allowed to pursue sex and have fun along the way while girls repeatedly get the short end of the stick.
It veers wildly from the style of a coming-of-age comedy like “ Superbad ” to something more family-oriented and heartfelt to the gross-out/raunch flicks we saw in the wake of the success of “There’s Something About Mary.”
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Superbad,” “Bridesmaids” and others have a genuine heart within them that propels the story and endears the characters even amid scenes that deal with juvenile sex jokes or gross-out moments.
Blockers is a second-generation teen romp openly owing its lineage to Superbad and American Pie while trying something new: not as consumed by its vulgarity, treating its teens who actually look like teens as the over-jaded post-Millennials they supposedly are, and having most of the film’s nudity provided by men, i.e., Gary Cole going full frontal, unashamed of his nice dick.
This potential female version of Superbad is frequently at odds with the more conventional, underwhelming comedy focused on the adult characters, who learn painfully obvious lessons and end up rewarded for some seriously misguided behavior.
Director Kay Cannon, making her debut after writing the Pitch Perfect trilogy and working on 30 Rock , splices together a parental buddy comedy and half a Superbad with girls without making anyone involved seem like a moralizing creep.
Various references to Vin Diesel and The Fast And The Furious are thrown into the mix.
Cena is game for anything; he reminded me a little of Arnold Schwarzenegger from some of his comedies (Twins and Kindergarten Cop), albeit without the accent.
Marking the directorial debut of Kay Cannon, the American writer behind the Pitch Perfect franchise, Blockers is an above average comedy that’s easy to engage with.
The crucial difference is this film, directed by Pitch Perfect’s screenwriter Kay Cannon, gives parents and their daughters equal screen time.
Then I read Lindsey Bahr’s piece on Kay Cannon (known for the Pitch Perfect franchise, as well as TV shows like 30 Rock, New Girl and Girlboss) and it all made sense: “Cannon took the script, which had only been worked on by male writers and executives when she signed on, and infused it with a more modern, sex-positive and feminist spirit,” Bahr explains.
It would have been easy for the girls to get slotted into stereotypes — the pretty one, the smart one, the jock — but brothers Jim and Brian Kehoe’s screenplay, in the hands of director Kay Cannon (a former 30 Rock writer who also wrote the Pitch Perfect screenplays), mostly resists the impulse.
What an outstanding directorial debut for Kay Cannon — making the leap from writing profitable Pitch Perfect installments to shaping dramatic moments as disarming as the laughs are large, and for both veteran actors and impressive new faces.
Even the Seth Rogen–versus–Zac Efron throwdown Neighbors reconciled with its slightly retrograde nature by letting women run wild in its sororal sequel Neighbors 2. Blockers, helmed by first-time director Kay Cannon (the woman who wrote the Pitch Perfect movies), gets it right the first time around, proving that a 2018 sex comedy can still be shocking and hilarious while checking off all the woke boxes.
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Among the recent examples of these positive efforts is 2013’s massive hit Frozen, which re-imagined the classic, damsel-in-distress Disney princess by giving her agency, and redefined true love by focusing on sisterly bonds.