'BLOCKERS' ROCKS
It’s parents vs. teens in comedic raunch-fest
Inthe Judd Apatow-like raunchy and occasionally raucous comedy “Blockers,” three suburban Chicago parents try to keep their high school senior daughters from keeping a “sex pact” — that is, an agreement to lose their virginity on prom night.
Produced by Seth Rogen among others and co-starring Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann, West Newbury's John Cena and comic Ike Barinholtz as the parents, the film features a talented young cast, and while it is a hit or miss affair, it often hits, even with that tired prom night angle that was also an element in the slightly overrated “Lady Bird.”
The action begins with a flashback to the first day of school for three future best friends: Julie, the daughter of single mother Lisa (Mann); Kayla, daughter of easy-to-cry married man Mitchell (Cena), who everyone thinks is a cop; and Sam, estranged daughter of divorced, reprehensible father Hunter (Barinholtz).
Cut to present day. Julie (Kathryn Newton) is dating
Austin (Graham Phillips), who is headed for UCLA, although Julie has supposedly agreed to go to a school closer to home. Kayla (Ger- aldine Viswanathan) chafes a bit at her overprotective, fullback-sized dad Mitchell.
When Julie tells her and Sam (Gideon Adlon) of her plans to have sex on prom night, Kayla chooses a random young man named Connor (Miles Robbins, “Mozart in the Jungle”) as her partner and agrees to the pact. Sam, who is secretly gay and crushing on a young woman in a Galadriel cape, pretends to choose class clown Chad (Jimmy Bellinger) as her partner.
Because of a texting mix-up and computer snooping by Lisa and Mitchell, they learn the young women's plans and decide to go after them and “block” them, with Hunter in tow. Among the developments are a 20foot limo with a funny driver, a prom that looks catered by Wolfgang Puck, booze and designer drugs, sexual meanings of emojis, projectile vomit, “butt-chugging,” Hunter and Mitchell forced to fondle the naughty bits of Connor's sex-game-playing mother (Gina Gershon) and father (Gary Cole), and an exploding SUV.
Directed by Kay Cannon (writer of those “Pitch Perfect” films), “Blockers” often comes across like a filmlength tribute to the work of the aforementioned Apatow, who brought the raunchy to modern mainstream comedy and helped give birth to a new generation of comic actors. In fact, “Blockers” might be described as a female-led version of the Apatow-produced and Rogen- and Evan Goldberg-scripted 2007 hit “Superbad.” “Blockers” also often seems like a nastier, more inclusive and enlightened version of the work of teen-comedy auteur John Hughes, who proved that entitled suburban America had as much comic potential as big cities. “Blockers” was a big hit at the recent SXSW.