EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!

(Cert 15; 117mins)

BILLED as a “spiritual successor” to Dazed And Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! is a warmly affectionate evocation of a moment in young lives when the whole world seems full of possibilities.

The latest film from Boyhood director Richard Linklater returns us to the hazy days of 1980 as freshman baseball pitcher Jake (Blake Jenner) arrives at a Texas college. The three days before classes start are spent with his boisterous new housemates, including smooth operator Finn (Glen Powell), fiercely competitive McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) and good guy Dale (J Quinton Johnson).

The boys tease out each other’s strengths and weaknesses as they party, play, chase girls and start bonding. There isn’t a great deal of plot to Everybody

Wants Some!! but that doesn’t matter. Instead we have the pleasure of spending time with a bunch of well-drawn, sweetly sympathetic characters. The dialogue is witty, the sense of period is spot-on and there is also a vulnerability beneath the bluster and bravado of young men enjoying the time of their lives.