High school movies of the grossout variety are pretty much a dime a dozen these days, following the success of American Pie and its numerous sequels. There’s clearly a huge market out there for feel-good fare that allows you to think back fondly (or not) on the politics of pain and humiliation that encapsulated everyone’s high school experience. More recent attempts at bringing this exquisite blend of fart jokes and heartfelt humour to the silver screen have, however, more readily emphasised the bawdy comedy rather than the rite-of-passage aspect of American Pie that lent the film more pathos and durability than you’d expect from cinematic fluff of this sort.
Well, Superbad, which draws out in excruciatingly funny detail the attempts by best buddies Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) to get laid at the last high-school party before they go their separate ways for college, harks back to that winning formula in creating a film that’s at once hilarious and moving. The story really is simple: Seth wants to get with Jules (Emma Stone), a gorgeous girl who apparently hasn’t yet realised what a loser he is and still talks to him; Evan is halfway into some kind of mutual crush with Becca (Martha MacIsaac). To up their cool quotient, both boys go on an epic quest to procure alcohol for Jules’ party, roping in their loser-dork friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and his newly acquired fake ID – except, of course, everything goes wrong. As the boys go on the run from the boozy, slacker arm of the law – featuring Seth Rogen and Bill Hader as a couple of humourously laidback, totally crazy-assed cops – we’re treated to a surprisingly intelligent exploration of the trials and tribulations of growing up, as both boys come somewhat to terms with separation anxiety and figuring out how to get with girls in a way that doesn’t involve just pure sex.
Sounds a bit preachy? Trust me, it’s anything but. Written by Rogen and his childhood buddy Evan Goldberg (yes, they very imaginatively named the lead characters after themselves!), the movie’s humour is skewed and incredibly fast-paced. At every moment, there’s another quip or random incident that is likely to have you scooping your jaw off the floor – which is pretty tough to do when you’re laughing at the same time! Whether it’s the acid-laden quips tossed out by Seth as he mocks the hapless Fogell (also known as the legal boozer 25-year-old ‘McLovin’), or the booze-and-bullets-fuelled educational tour of the city Fogell enjoys courtesy of the most insanely depraved cops in the history of crime, Superbad never lets up. The script adeptly mixes smart quips (rare in a movie fuelled by hormones, beer and getting laid) and ace physical comedy (Seth’s frequent, literal run-ins with cars, Fogell’s accidental capture of a drunk bent on creating some kind of social disturbance, and all the painfully charming attempts by each boy to get it on with the opposite sex). Not to mention visual aids like the dozens and dozens of penis drawings scattered throughout the film and its credits, courtesy of Seth’s apparent… well, fixation with drawing the male anatomy in every shape, form and costume.
Fortunately, the relatively young cast is also up for the challenge: Hill manages to keep his rather underwritten character sympathetic rather than repulsive, which is quite a feat because it never really becomes clear why either Evan or Jules have stuck with Seth the way they have. There’s something distinctly Everyman-ish about the way Hill plays his role that allows him to paper over the parts of the movie that see him fretting childishly that Evan got into a better college than him, or the bits that have him verbally roughing up the dorky Fogell in an almost cruel way. Cera, meanwhile, continues to prove that no one plays awkward or loveable loser quite as well as he does: harking back to his excellent performance in the tragically cancelled Arrested Development, Cera shines whether he’s singing on demand (forced to by a batch of drug-addled people who have confused him for someone else) or fending off the advances of a completely smashed Becca. Rogen and Hader (the latter being an almost disconcertingly handsome doppelganger of The Office‘s Rainn Wilson) are also clearly having the time of their lives as the freakishly irresponsible cops out to prove to Fogell that the fun doesn’t stop when you become a grown-up: it just becomes wackier, more outlandish, and potentially fatal!
The real standout here though, as is almost universally acknowledged, is Mintz-Plasse – with his slightly squeaky, just-out-of-puberty voice and hangdog, geeky demeanour, he breathes surprisingly charming life into the character of Fogell. It’s quite a refreshing change from the traditional sidekick role, typically established to serve as little more than the brunt of cruel jokes – here, Fogell is almost as essential to the main plot as either Seth or Evan; his is also a journey in growing up and figuring out what being a grown-up is about… even if that involves shooting flaming cars up to bury evidence!
If there’s anything that rankles about Superbad, it’s the way the film ends in an almost idyllic fashion – oh, it works, of course, when Seth and Evan meet Jules and Becca in the aftermath of the humilation that all of them suffered (so uniquely high-school!) at the party the night before. But it’s sweet rather than bittersweet, which almost counters the relentlessly irreverent tone adopted for much of the rest of the movie. As already mentioned, it would also be more difficult to warm to the main character of Seth if Hill hadn’t managed to somehow round off the brittle edges of Seth’s jerkishness with a performance that just wasn’t there on the written page.
These are, however, but minor criticisms of what is otherwise a glorious entry in the canon of high school movies of the grossout variety. The humiliation and horror of that period in everyone’s lives is wonderfully captured – Evan’s clueless conversations with Becca in which she’s flirting her little ass off and he just doesn’t know, even as he tries to impress her – and remarkably true to life, for all the madcap hilarity that’s swirling around the proceedings. (Seth’s encounter with a randy, drunken lass at a party he crashes with Evan? Now that’s grossout humour at its most outrageous and unmitigated!) At its best, Superbad is fun, smart and touching; a feat for a movie first written by Rogen and Goldberg at the age of 13 (!) that might too easily have just been another run-of-the-mill teen comedy.
shawneofthedead 