Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) Review!!

Synopsis – A group of college baseball players navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.

My Take – I have not seen much of Richard Linklater’s works, but from what I have seen, without a shadow of a doubt, he is a very distinctive filmmaker. Fresh off the critical success of Boyhood, a coming-of-age passion project which was 12 years in the making, writer/director Richard Linklater has returned to the genre he somehow seems to feel entirely comfortable in, the slacker comedy. Right from the moment I saw the trailer I had a feeling many people would hate this film. I mean, how can they not? A movie about an ensemble cast of coincidentally handsome bros in early 80’s college life that do nothing other than chase women and get wasted? We have already seen multiple comedies do this so horribly, so why get another film based on the same? And don’t get me started on how paranoid anyone can get with discussions about influences or feminism. But somehow, I knew this one would just click with me. Certain directors just mesh well with your world view and style. His humor works for certain people, and it doesn’t translate well for international audiences. For instance, I love Kevin Smith‘s style of comedy, but many don’t. Here, Linklater has made a film which is starkly in contrast to Boyhood, where there isn’t anything about this that is remotely “cinematic”. Here, he delivers an anti-plotted tale on the kids of the 1980’s with all his heart & soul. There isn’t anything conventional or standard about its storytelling. There isn’t any through line, character arcs, or villains. It’s just college students living their lives. Which really makes this movie difficult to rate or even talk about. You just hang out with these guys for two hours and that’s it. A common fact, based on the films I have seen from Linklater’s works, is that his films don’t require an intense, clever or unique narrative, just a bunch of well rounded characters and some great dialogue. His latest feature is a nostalgically buoyant jock romp demarcates its time-line strictly within a stretch from Thursday to Monday before the college starts and conceptually also spiritually a continuation after Boyhood or even Dazed and Confused (1993), a film I haven’t seen yet. This film is a real comedy, not some reality show knock off about college athletes gone bad. Its 1980 and it feels like 1980, and the kids are full of 1980’s optimism expressed in their passion for baseball and hot chicks. Richard Linklater approaches this film with his style and says “yeah, this is dumb and not safe, but it is also fun and a small dose of fun is no crime.” This film is not only good, nor only exceptional but probably perfect in what it wants to be.

The story follows promising pitcher freshman Jake (Blake Jenner) in the fall of 1980 in Texas, who moves into the boarding house shared with other baseball team members, where he is greeted with a mixture of both excited curiosity and suspicious disdain. Finnegan (Glen Powell), Dale (J. Quinton Johnson) and Roper (Ryan Guzman), a few of the older students who welcome Jake and fellow freshman Plummer (Temple Baker) with a bit more warmth, take the new arrivals on a car journey around campus, where they prepare themselves for a few days of booze, drugs, parties, and trying to convince members of the opposite sex to sleep with them. Fraternal bonding and competition, booze and marijuana, hazing and of course, baseball training, routinely constitute their entire life. Between all the drama, Blake also manages to win the heart of a young drama student Beverly (Zoey Deutch), three days prior to the first day of the college. Some of these young men are plain hedonistic, others are followers, and some might never fit in. I found refreshing than even the oddballs fit. There’s no excessive dramatics, and in spite of a few references to a possible pregnancy and having a bar fights, the spirits remain light and the tale of a weekend flows smoothly. I’m not sure whether contemporary audiences will appreciate a film that shows this period. It’s been more than 30 years, and the world has changed quite a bit. These men are fighting over records, and there’s not a cell nowhere in sight. People talked and interacted, without being slaves to technology. Oh, yes the hairdos and the clothes might never make a comeback, but it’s a sweet nostalgic trip, and it’s there for us to enjoy it. The secret to the film’s success, surprisingly, is its simplicity. There’s virtually no plot, no conflict (unless if you consider coping chicks is any sort of struggle), or any significant cultural iconography other than a classic rock soundtrack and retro production design. What the film does, however, is simply observe the multitudes of vignettes of males doing male things, like partying, playing home sports, drinking, dancing with girls, more partying, and then some. Linklater‘s writing is the key. He creates character through conversation – the way they talk moulds who they are without having to give back story or motivation. And yet, it all feels tangible; we feel that we’re with these boys and their shenanigans, even though I never lived in the 80’s. All of this is due to the maestro of social observation Richard Linklater. Having been born in 1989, I sadly wasn’t there for the early 1980s, but while this film feels as if you’re watching something made at the time rather than a period piece. The way he frames these trials of masculinity looks so ultra- real that it’s barely a movie anymore as much as it is a series of YouTube videos recording real life events. What makes this film different is that from the beginning these wisecracking jocks know they’re not going to be picked up by the pros, but they still talk about that happening with the right realistic attitude. Director Richard Linklater paints a portrait of young men quickly transitioning into men who know what’s up. After all, the bulk of the characters are indistinguishable jocks doing bong hits and offering their unique blend of wisdom for the majority of the film.

While this approach may run its course before the credits rolls, there is some genuine wisdom to be found here, along with a tinge of sadness. The most interesting character has to be Finn (Glen Powell), the ladies’ man spouting Linklater aphorisms like the one above. He’s a woman-con who nevertheless comes out with thoughts for life amidst his clowning. This film is a love letter to that time of your life when you are filled with optimism and the world is yours to explore, and Jake and his friends’ journey of discovery and fulfillment is a rite-of-passage experienced by most young men and women. It could also be interpreted as a search for identity as the group wander from their usual disco haunt and try out line-dancing, a punk concert, and a themed costume party set up by performing arts majors, including the auburn-haired girl of Jake’s dreams (Zoey Deutch). Call it what you will, but the film’s power lies within Linklater‘s eye for nostalgia, delivering a final shot that captures more feeling than most films struggle to create in their run time. Like I mentioned before, from another point of view, the biggest issue people may have the film is that nothing much happens at all, so Linklater takes a huge gamble in assuming audiences will warm to its hefty ensemble. Another fault would be the excessive presence of casual sexism, something while can be chalked up to “period detail”, nevertheless feels just plain gross. Linklater attempts to address this attitude within Jake’s arc which begins with him rubbernecking girls and ends with him in a monogamous relationship. Yet with so many conflicting ideas on women in this film all bordering on paternalism, one can’t help but think Linklater‘s broad sweep is just a way to avoid the issue. Sure there’s fully developed female characters (okay really just one) but when the picture shows two women in white panties mud- wrestling what are we supposed to be thinking? “Wow things were so weird back then,” or are we supposed to think, “oh well, boys will be boys.” The unknown ensemble cast was great. Everyone is as good as each other and creating extremely believable chemistry and friendship between them all. They bounce off one another throughout the film and the film is centered and lives off them bonding together as a team. Blake Jenner, J. Quinton Johnson, Temple Baker, Juston Street, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch’s acting allows the film to work. The soundtrack is brilliant too. The music choices bring essential background tone to each scene and are cleverly selected. On the whole, ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ is a feel good flick film with simple themes, interesting characters & funny conversations despite the story being nonexistent.