Sex Drive

Since I was already up in Manchester, I decided to make it a two-movie afternoon by catching a showing of another second run film that had come and gone during my six week trip---Sex Drive, a movie that looked from the trailers to be an unwatchable raunchy teen sex comedy. Unlike How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, it was enjoying a multiweek resurrected run and was being held over. Seeing it that afternoon, however, would eliminate the need for another hour-long drive up to New Hampshire.

With an hour to kill before the late afternoon showing, I went off to drink coffee in a nearby Dunkin Donuts, then came back to park in the ample parking lot. The theater reminded me a lot of multiplexes in Texas---it was built on the crest of a hill overlooking the freeway, accessed by a winding side road to a sprawling asphalt lot. The building was a plain brick shed type, with a few gilded decorations. All in all, it was pure functionality.

As I sat in the parking lot, I noticed that the patrons getting out of their cars seemed to be uniformly obese. The only exception was a woman on crutches. The small auditoriums had four separate "stage seats" for wheel chairs. What kind of people come to this place?

Still the lobby was clean, and the teenage staff was pleasant. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the place.

That pretty much summed up my attitude towards the movie itself. I was expecting two hours of excruciating hell, but very quickly I came to embrace and enjoy the movie, which turned out to be a updated riff on Fast Times at Ridgemont High, mixed in with the genetic story code of Risky Business, Porky's, and even Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Josh Zuckerman plays a beleagured teenage virgin with a lousy mall job and an older brother, played brilliantly by James Marsden, who starts off as sadism incarnate. Marsden's performance turns out to be one of the entertaining parts of the movie.

At first I was as revolted as I expected to be---especially the overt sadism and the message that this is simply part of the teenage experience these days. But the story actually has a trajectory, and a rather amusing one.

Zuckerman's character's goal of "just getting laid" is forgiven because of his youth. The fresh aspect of the story is in the female lead character, played by Amanda Crew, who is affectionate with Zuckerman's character, but insistent on being "just friends."

The story winds up giving a fresh updated perspective on the whole proposition of the platonic romances that spring up between sensitive young men and their female friends. This kind of premise can easily be played in all the wrong ways, especially in a raunchy comedy, but this story avoided the pitfalls and found an enlightened path towards getting the characters together, as they should be.

Coupled with the evolution of the male best friend character, played amusingly by Clark Duke, the movie turns out to be crammed full of very topical and relevant commentary of the sexuality of today's youth, who are, according the movie, both super-sophisticated and hopelessly naive at the same time. Once one penetrates the obligatory gloss of revolting humor (the first few moments set a tone of vulgarity that is thankfully soon abandoned), the romance and emotions come across as surprisingly genuine, and at times downright sweet.

The story is also graced by the hilarious comic relief of an Amish character played by Seth Green, who turns out to be the gateway to entire Amish-oriented subplot that had me laughing out loud on several occasions.

The fate of the sadistic older brother character is also a nice surprise, offering interesting commentary on the psychological roots of cruelty. Marsden pulls it off very well.

Wow, I might be completely alone on this, but I quite liked this movie! And it introduced me to some good young acting talent. Amanda Crew is gorgeous and can act!

I'm starting to notice a huge and interesting trend, however, in that anything remotely innocent and possibly sweet has to be promoted as being extremely raunchy, and glossed with base humor. In the case of Role Models, the raunch seen in the trailers was unrelenting in the story itself, belying the title. Here, the trailer and title were somewhat misleading, but in a good way, and the lighthearted innocence of the story seemed to carry it far more than the vulgar parts.

Not bad for half price.