The To Do List
Gender reversal in comingof-age teen movie a subversive surprise
The premise had practically no promise whatsoever: A young, smart, beautiful woman feels she needs to lose her virginity before going off to college, and sets off on a quest for carnal experience.
Sadly, Maggie Carey’s clever, dry, in-your-face comedy about one keener’s desire to assert and own her sexuality will probably sputter at the box office.
It’s not that The To Do List isn’t funny. It is. It’s also got more insight and honesty behind its use of expletives than any other piece of writing to hit the screen this summer as we watch watching the “nerdy” academic scholar Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) make her first flaps toward adulthood.
Though she was ridiculed and taunted for being too smart, Brandy remains confident in her identity because she is actually smarter than everybody else.
Her intelligence has allowed her to become arrogant and a little self-serving, but karma always has a remedy that finds just what she needs at her summer job as a lifeguard — pool stud, Rusty Waters (Scott Porter).
The encounter ignites Brandy’s long-dormant libido, and when she realizes she could appear a slobbering novice in the face of grown-up engagement, she devises a curriculum for self-study.
Consulting with friends and her older sister for tips on what men like as well as what feels good for women, Brandy comes up with her “To Do List.”
It’s all rather average comingof-age material, but in Hollywood genre the very notion of a woman plotting her own sexual growth is practically akin to prostitution. When men lose their virginity on screen, it’s a cause for celebration. But when a woman loses her virginity, there’s a sense of mourning.
Women “lose” their virginity to a man. It is something that is “taken” from them. But Brandy is so beautifully defiant of the socalled patriarchy that she insists on owning the whole process, enlisting a variety of willing partners to help her on her personal, sexual journey.
Carey’s script doesn’t bother with any long tracts of rhetoric to explain this inherently oppositional stance because it saturates every frame.
Regardless of intent, the movie’s flaws generally work in its favour, much like its central heroine, Brandy. Thanks to Plaza’s ability to project a smoky sexuality alongside a smouldering intellect and positively square sensibility, Brandy is constantly likable.
She’s also constantly in charge, which makes this story of lost virginity something of a first, as one woman realizes she’s not a “loser” by gaining experience. Nor is she a “slut.”
The To Do List crushes the virgin-whore Hollywood axis by simply showing us a smart woman enjoying life, liberty and the pursuit of sexual happiness — without getting stoned.