As I’ve mentioned before, I have a bit of a weakness for coming of age films and this certainly counts. It does seem rather more juvenile than I would usually like but it’s has been well reviewed and even showed up on the best of lists of a number of critics. Interestingly it’s also the debut directorial feature of Olivia Wilde who is of course best known as an actress.

High school best friends Amy and Molly are about to graduate and are happy that their resolve to forgo socializing to concentrate on school has paid off as they are bound for good universities. But then Molly learns that their classmates have qualified for good schools as well but were still able to party at the same time. She is determined to get in one night of wild partying before graduating and drags along Amy with her. She especially wants to go to the party at the house of Nick, a jock that she is embarrassed about having a crush on. Meanwhile Amy who is gay has a crush on another girl Ryan and goes because she will also be at the party. However they soon run into a problem. Neither of them know where Nick’s house is and in trying to get to it over the course of the night get diverted to various adventures.

While comedies often play fast and loose with facts and plausibility, this one is particularly egregious as many things don’t make sense at all and the film doesn’t care. So we’re just going to ignore how ridiculous it is that all these kids are going to famous universities, or how this rich kid who is giving away iPads as party favors can’t get anyone to go to his party on a freaking yacht, or how contrived the duo’s dilemma of not being to get to a friend’s house is in the age of the mobile phone. It’s all in good fun such as the way the frequently out of it classmate Gigi pops up at every location they get to. This isn’t very intelligent humor but it is funny and the two actresses who play Amy and Molly have great chemistry. There’s an animated scene in which the two go on a drug trip and that really goes off the deep end. It’s pretty vulgar material but it is creative.

Entertainment value aside, I’m amused at the thought of this as being the 21st century, woke version of vulgar teen comedies like American Pie. The characters are still teenagers with sex on their minds, but with the protagonists being girls, they’re much more interested in building relationships than scoring notches. Molly mocks another girl for being sexually promiscuous but is soundly told off for it. The film goes out of its way to demonstrate its wokeness and not single hint of a mean streak anywhere. Even a traditional jock archetype like Nick is revealed to be respectful and a decent person. All of the adults including authority figures like parents and teachers are supportive and understanding. It does get a little silly how there are no bad apples at all but I do admire that they can manage to be funny without having to put anyone down.

All in all, this is a pretty insubstantial film with even the requisite argument between Amy and Molly feeling like manufactured drama. I do worry that in its insistence on proving its progressivity goes so far that it actually erodes those values instead. For example their theatre loving classmate George is such a caricature that it’s hard to think highly of him. Similarly the two using ‘Malala’ as their codeword to get the other to do whatever they want seems a little trite. All told it’s solid humor that won’t leave you feeling vaguely slimey afterwards so I suppose that’s good enough.