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It’s like six movies packed into one, and only about four of them are worth watching. Even though it’s the kind of comedy that could be discovered by chance late at night on HBO and thoroughly enjoyed, it struggles to hold together in a movie theater due to its inconsistent tone. “There’s Something About Mary” takes us from the style of a coming-of-age comedy like “Superbad” to something more family-oriented and heartfelt, as well as the gross-out/raunch flicks that followed in the wake of the success of the film. The fact that “Blockers” manages to jump from heartfelt conversations about the emotional trauma a parent experiences as their child grows up to a scene in which John Cena chugs beer with his asshole is almost admirable, but it becomes exhausting to watch a comedy jump through so many hoops at the same time.
It’s an emotional experience for any parent to witness their little girls meet for the first time outside of elementary school, as Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) do outside of the school on their first day. As the trio realizes that their children have become fast friends, Hunter jokes that this means that the strangers who have become friends with their children must now be friends with them as well—as we all know, you’ll spend more time with the parents of your children’s friends than your own. Hunter then asks if they’d like to go get a beer, and Mitchell breaks down in tears (“Blockers” gets a lot of mileage out of the visual of a guy Cena’s size breaking down in tears.)
Cut to Prom Night, which serves as a bookend to a student’s educational career. When we first meet Lisa, she is establishing a loving relationship with her daughter Julie (a charismatic Kathryn Newton), but we soon discover that Lisa is becoming a little clingy as Julie prepares to leave her for the first time on her own. Julie expresses a desire to travel all the way to UCLA (the film is set in Chicago), and Lisa is visibly distressed at the prospect of losing her daughter at all, let alone traveling such a long distance from home. In Lisa’s case, Mann conveys Lisa’s desperation and fear of being left behind in a subtle enough manner that it works. Especially amusing is a speech in which she breaks down at the thought of dying alone, which she delivers during the course of her performance. In this film, director Kay Cannon constantly allows her three leads to play to their strengths: Mann’s borderline smothering, Cena’s tenderness cloaked in toughness, and Barinholtz’s smart-ass wisecracking witty repartee
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But, you ask, what exactly are they preventing? After all, Julie’s two best friends, the outgoing Kayla (Geradline Viswanathan) and the more reserved Sam (Gideon Adlon), are sitting in class just before Prom Night and talking about how Julie plans to finally have sex with her boyfriend Austin that night (Graham Phillips). Kayla wants to be a part of the shared experience and decides to do the deed with Connor (Miles Robbins), and Sam, despite the fact that she is much more interested in a lesbian at her school named Marcie (Sarayu Blue), decides to participate as well with her date, Connor (Miles Robbins). As the three couples prepare to embark on a night of revelry, Julie makes the mistake of leaving a group chat open on her laptop, and the girls’ parents, in a hilarious scene, decipher the emojis and figure out what is going on. Although Hunter initially objects, they eventually agree to go out and save the girls from doing something they’ll come to regret.
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However, contrary to what you may have gathered from the trailers, Cannon takes great care not to deliver a comedy that relies on the double standard that has long separated teenage boys and girls when it comes to sex behavior. In fact, Julie and Mitchell are constantly being called out on their blatant lies and misinformation. Lisa gave birth to Julie at a young age and does not want the same for her daughter, but it is also clear that Julie is head over heels in love with Austin and that this is no mere hook-up between the two of them. In the film “Blockers,” sex, and experimentation in general, are treated as natural parts of the development into adulthood, with the parents who try to prevent it being accepted as a natural part of the process. A number of the most effective scenes in “Blockers” demonstrate just how much being overprotective can cause you to become stuck in time, while also portraying the teenagers as progressive/woke/etc. in a clever, modern way.
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Clearly, there are some good ideas for a comedy in “Blockers,” as well as some very funny scenes from a cast with excellent comic timing, but the film has either been rewritten one too many times or one too few times to be successful. Whatever the case, it would be an understatement to say that the tonal range is all over the place. The first half-hour or so of “Blockers” was particularly effective for me, as it became clear how much Cannon could extract from a talented cast (not only the adults, but also the children, particularly scene-stealer Viswanathan), but then the film falls into the trap of having to up the ante in terms of insaneness with each subsequent scene. As the drugs, booze, and lunacy are ramped up to 11 in an attempt to “top” something like “American Pie” or “Superbad,” the film loses the emotional grounding that was present in the opening scenes. Despite the fact that “Blockers” has five credited writers (Ed. note: it had five at SXSW, but it has since been reduced to two), you would not guess that if I didn’t tell you. I think it’s just extremely difficult to strike a balance between the wildly divergent tones in a film that contains more sex jokes than any other I’ve seen in years and characters who feel real when they’re talking about going away to school and leaving their parents and friends behind.
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With that in mind, it’s noteworthy how close “Blockers” comes to actually functioning. The audience I saw it with at SXSW—a festival that has become known for mainstream comedy debuts in recent years, having launched “Bridesmaids,” “Trainwreck,” and other shows—gobbled it up and exclaimed “hysterical” as they filed out of the building. Unquestionably funny, and I wish for a world in which Cena, Mann, and Barinholtz have more opportunities to work together—and, even more importantly, a world in which more female directors are hired to direct R-rated studio comedies. The only thing I hope is that the next film is a little better than “Blockers.”
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On March 11, 2018, this review was submitted as part of the 2018 SXSW Film Festival.
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