Prom Dates review – grating high school comedy is a low-rent disaster
There are good reasons why many American teens stress about prom: it’s expensive, heightened, fraught with status and identity; the photos will haunt you forever; it’s a coming-of-age milestone freighted with significance, thanks in part to countless films and TV shows in which teens stress about prom. To that canon there is now a new throwaway entry: Hulu’s Prom Dates, a cringeworthy comedy produced by Kevin Hart, which posits that in the year 2024, two seemingly selfpossessed girls sincerely believe that having a prom date – any prom date, but especially a cool one – is the single most important thing in the world. That it’s the one reason to stay in a cartoonishly terrible relationship, or go on a fishing expedition in search of passable strangers to drag back for one night in high school.
This is just one of the many grating elements in Prom Dates, directed by Kim O Nguyen from a script by DJ Mausner. Others include, in no particular order: overuse of jokes, however well-meaning and couched in a razor-thin plot of acceptance, predicated on stereotypes of lesbians in lieu of cleverness; extremely off-putting, self-obsessed characters; overweening performances; gratuitous projectiles of vomit and/or blood as desperate bids for laughs; an overly hammy character named Greg (Kenny Ridwan) that queasily milks the stereotype of the emasculated, nerdy Asian male. (All of these issues recall the woefully ill-conceived HBO series Generation, a onestar review that haunts me, which is maybe part of the problem.)
The central issue, though, is that tunnel-vision on prom, which makes sense for some 13-year-olds, as Hannah (Julia Lester) and Jess (Antonia Gentry) are when they sneak under a table at the older kids’ dance and form a blood pact that they will help each other have the perfect future prom. That is the first scene of the movie – the nerdier Hannah’s blood oath goes horribly awry, of course – and still 90% of Jess’s character several years later. (The other 10% is liking Hannah’s brother (JT Neal), who looks and acts like a management consultant and to whom she secretly lost her virginity.) As a senior, Jess remains obsessed with becoming prom queen – so much so that she has spent some of her college fund on a custom prom gown and is dating Luca (Jordan Buhat), a sinister hunk rippling with rank one-note contempt. (He makes fun of Hannah’s size to both of their faces, for one.)
Hannah, meanwhile, is stuck in a sexless relationship that makes her skin crawl with the overly devoted, creepily romantic Greg (truly, poor Greg) because she is too afraid to come out as gay, for reasons thankfully beyond prom. But when Greg’s devotion spooks Hannah into literally running away, and Jess catches Luca cheating on her, the two are left dateless on prom eve. And because of the blood pact and the fact that Jess got a Brazilian, they go on a college party bender at Rutgers to find
Hannah the lesbian date of her dreams and to find Jess literally anyone. At least they name a specific place; the film is otherwise the now-expected streaming service dump of overlit and hazy, lacking both a sense of place or of real teenagers.
Prom Dates takes clear inspiration from Netflix’s far superior Sex Education, talking frankly about being inside someone, fingering and prom night expectations. But whereas Sex Education grounded its heightened scenarios and zaniness (an alien sex musical, a teen sex therapist) in real teenage conundrums, curiosity and lust, Prom Dates finds only “I wasted 10 months of my life giving handjobs to a guy with a Glee bumper sticker” and the principal (John Michael Higgins) putting a condom on his head. Imagine Booksmart, including a drug trip and first encounter with a woman over one raucous night, without any of the charm or texture and with a side plot about an Italian guy looking for a human sacrifice at a college party. Jess goes for him anyway, because prom!
What sweetness and charm Prom Dates does muster is thanks to Lester alone, whose comic timing is sharp and whose performance of a girl growing comfortable in her sexuality over one crazy night actually conjures the sense of a real person. It’s a relief when Hannah ditches Jess’s inveterate prom scheming and stumbles out on her own. A standout from the underappreciated High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Lester brings heart and actual humor to what often feels like a cut-and-paste job of basic tropes with attempts of absurdism sutured on, such as a painfully unfunny turn by Chelsea Handler as Greg’s mom, who teaches her beloved dog to communicate by pressing labeled buttons.
Prom Dates is checkered with such stretches – a suspected lesbian on the softball team is so big she can’t fit in a car, for one literal tall tale – which exemplify this movie’s overall feeling of strain. Straining for prom, straining for laughs, straining to make something edgy or progressive. Straining the notions of comedy, and certainly one’s precious time.
Prom Dates is now available on Hulu in the US with a UK date to be announced
that way sometimes too.’” She reminds me of the human dimension behind the common urge, in all these different people, to write songs.
As I procrastinate at home, I realise a retreat, a space to write with likeminded people – which Williams also recommended – might propel me along. But does it matter if I don’t have a clue what I’m doing? I ask Williams this, and her answer is reassuring: “Being a beginner, and being OK with that, is the best way to be creative.”
***
Located high above the sea on the Llŷn peninsula, Ty Newydd is an inspirational setting, though it starts to feel a bit inauspicious when I learn that David Lloyd George died in the library where we meet for evening sessions. The course is about links between poetry and songwriting, and my classmates include people who have published poetry collections, played on folk-rock albums, and regularly perform humorous songs (one entertains us in a showcase on the final night with a song about haemorrhoid cream).
We start every morning with Briggs teaching us a cappella songs, which exercise our lungs, our ears and my nerves. We go on communal rainy walks, where we’re encouraged to write freely, without filter, about how we’re inspired by the sounds of wind, weather and water, to put together unusual combinations of words that speak to us.
We also eat together, constructing an intimate creative community, and in sessions, we have fascinating discussions about what songs do that poems don’t. Henry talks about how great melodies elevate cliche and abstraction, while poetry has to deal with the “harsh terrain” of the page. He also says that one sound in a song – such as Clare Torry’s vocal from Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky – can articulate emotionally what “a whole poem by John Donne could do”. I think of the thrilling chord at the start of the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, and how it still ignites my heart.
With Briggs, we analyse snippets of music by different artists (such as Bruce Springsteen, Nina Simone and, deliciously, Kylie Minogue) and talk about how songs are intricate jigsaw puzzles of words, sounds, atmospheres and arrangements. “People often feel a pressure to put intense emotion into a song to give it power,” Briggs says, but advises that subtler musical punctuation often works better, like a little fingerpicking (the subtle majesty of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car), or the suggestion of a drone (tons of folk songs) to give tension.
My song starts to emerge from a free-writing session where we’re given lines of poems as prompts. One leaps out at me – “My father and mother, my brother and sister” – suggesting something gothic. Why would someone list their family like that? The idea of a murder ballad starts to trickle on to the page, as we’re told to look for moods and energies in our words, and not to worry whether we’re copying anyone.
I find out later that the line comes from a Paul Muldoon poem, Sightseers, about a family trip. The poem ends with a detail about the horrors of the Troubles, but the song I write is very different. And as we go off to write, Briggs offers the most unnerving comment of the week: “Whatever you do, your song will always end up sounding like you.”
***
This takes us to the final day: me in the library with a keyboard. We’ve been encouraged to collaborate, which makes me feel weirdly vulnerable. Thankfully, my classmate Ellen happens to write excellent poetry and helps me out. We twist Muldoon’s line into a rhyme – “my father and mother, my sister, brother”, repeating it as a refrain sung by different voices, like an echo of a folk song.
The idea of a ghostly girl wandering around a house emerges. Ellen and I work on a narrative with a twist at the end, mixing ordinary lines (“I open the door”) with ghostlier ones (“I fall through the floor”). After my keyboard skills fail me, an emergency call is placed to Ellen’s husband, Josh, a fellow course participant, who helps me out on the guitar.
Our song is titled (The Rather
Rough-and-Ready Ballad of) Georgina, as a nod to the late David Lloyd George. It sounds like Lankum, Josh says, and later I notice how my melody and singing are heavily influenced by (and highly inferior to, plus less in tune than) the Irish band’s singer, Radie Peat, and how its lyrics are inspired by a conversation with another classmate about Penelope Farmer’s Cure-inspiring 1969 novel, Charlotte Sometimes. Its chanted refrain also carries echoes of our morning a cappellas with Briggs. My subconscious has been doing its work after all.
When we come to perform it, I’m terrified, but also strangely excited. As our group has built a shared sense of trust and loyalty, it feels OK that what we’ve made is pretty rough and ready. I also realise that these courses aren’t about writing hit singles, but the joy of trying out new things with new people.
And thanks to Ellen and Josh, the song’s debut isn’t a total disaster. Afterwards, I approach my tutors for a review; they are unsparing but kind. Henry says that he would have loved me to play around with first- and thirdperson perspectives in the song, and maybe even speak the last verse to vary its tension. Briggs points out that my layering of lines on top of each other makes the refrain “hard to understand”, and suggests some development with its chords and arrangement to “stop its dirginess, getting too, well, dirge-y”.
Then comes my best review to date: “I loved its intensity. Personally, I’d love to hear your song as drone-y heavy metal.” Not a direction I thought I’d be encouraged to pursue at 45, but watch this space. I ask Briggs what it’s like to criticise a critic. “It’s never easy to read reviews,” he says. “But I try not to let them influence what I’m doing next. Not everyone will like what I do. You should listen to that advice too!”
I think of what I might say about my song as a critic. I’d say that its repetition was a little leaden, and the mood was clearly derivative. But from now on, I’ll also think about how people don’t necessarily write songs to fit into trends, or around reviewers’ assessments. There’s a thrill and sweetness in the act of writing songs, and what that can provide in people’s lives: a new, urgent rhythm, and a fresh voice.
Listen to Jude’s song (The Rather Rough-and-Ready Ballad of) Georgina, and read her lyrics
My father and motherMy sister and brotherAll under the coverOf darkness are gone
I stand by the windowI wait on the stairsI sit at the tableThere’s nobody there
My father and motherMy sister and brotherAll under the coverOf darkness are gone
I listen for breathingI open the doorI find it so emptyI fall through the floor
My father and motherMy sister and brotherAll under the coverOf darkness are gone
I crouch on the landingI rock on the chairI died in the waterI live in the air
My father and motherMy sister and brotherAll under the coverOf darkness are gone
You said you were leavingBefore the day cameI long for your voicesTo call out my name
My father and motherMy sister and brotherAll under the coverOf darkness – I’m gone