Parents’ worst nightmare is comedy gold

Blockers 15 cert, 102 min

Dir Kay Cannon Starring Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton, Gideon Adlon, Geraldine Viswanathan, Graham Phillips, Miles Robbins, Jimmy Bellinger, Ramona Young

There are 19-year-olds walking among us who were not born when American Pie (1999) came out. This bombshell might take some processing, as does the fact that the stars of that gross-out phenomenon are now roughly the age of the parents in Blockers – a trio of controlling worrywarts who can’t help meddling in their children’s sex lives.

In updating the teen raunchcomedy formula with the added twist of parental intervention, the pact in

Pie for all those boys to lose their virginity has undergone surgery. It’s now a secret arrangement between three girls, who have chosen the very evening of prom night to do the deed. Two are straight, and one is a lesbian, though she hasn’t told anyone: like the other two, she has a male date and tries to talk herself into hooking up without the slightest trace of relish.

Blending coarse belly laughs with surprisingly tender acting and writing,

Blockers qualifies as a way-aboveaverage studio comedy, in a year that has already brought us the deft Game

Night. Kay Cannon makes her debut as a director, after proving her savviness and wit on the subject of youth culture as the Pitch Perfect series screenwriter.

The parents – Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barinholtz – find out about their daughters’ sex pact via a group chat pinging up on the laptop one of them left open. This scene goes to town on emojis, a morass of daunting hieroglyphics to the older generation.

The girls are wonderful. But the film’s secret weapon is Barinholtz, whose hilarious timing elevates every bit of material he gets. His quip about a merkin is one for the ages, and while

Blockers may not launch quite as many fledgling careers as American

Pie did, this guy, at least, ought to get some serious mileage out of it.

Not bad, all round, for a multiplexfiller that could have been half as good and still passed the time.