I've seen this movie frequently over the years, and generally find little real fault with this formula despite the fact that I've never seen anything like this happen in real life. The first time I remember this formula at work was Can't Hardly Wait: A game-changing party that brings people together who have spent most of their lives separated by the evil politics common at your average American high school. The problem is that the party never happens. No popular kid has ever thrown a kegger where everyone was invited to attend. Or maybe I just didn't go to a small enough town. My high school's grad parties were wicked segregated along various social lines, and I've never heard anyone say otherwise… although it's been a long time since I've known anyone to talk about high school parties.
It's been an odd month for me. In the same month, I've now watched two new releases that starred two people I've never heard of before: Alex Pettyfer and Teresa Palmer. They've both been around, but apparently not in anything I would watch. If you're interested in what I have to say about Pettyfer, you can check out yesterday's post on Beastly or my post on I Am Number Four. But, I loved Teresa Palmer again. Not only is she easy on the eyes, but there was something comfortable about her on screen. She managed to pull off an easy balance of approachable and sexy, and let's face it, not many real women manage to pull that off. If I'm disappointed about anything in her performance, it's that she had to lose her Aussie accent. I may also have to put the hurt on Topher Grace for his part in manhandling my current hottie of the moment.
When you watch this movie, you'll repeat to yourself over and over: I've seen this before. There's nothing really unique about this movie; nothing to set it apart from others of its type. It's filled with drunkenness, drug use, debauchery, and the petty pranks that seem to define young adults in a five or seven year range. It has elements (of course) of Can't Hardly Wait, Dirty Deeds, Trojan War, The Breakfast Club, and a panoply of other teen movies (where the cast is made up of people in their late twenties and early thirties pretending to play characters at least five to ten years younger than they really are). Take Me Home has a relatively large number of big names for a film of this type, but it seems hell bent on playing down that advantage. Anna Faris has a major part, but is largely ignored and is relegated to scenes where her special brand of comic idiot genius vanishes in the wake of poorly done drama. Michelle Trachtenberg appears in a cameo, but it took me a bit more than half the movie to confirm it was really her. I haven't seen here do anything since… either Eurotrip or the end of Buffy… so maybe five years? I'm guessing someone's been off to college, and in this movie she's ALL grown up.
The most obvious point of praise of this less-than-stunning movie is the soundtrack, which tended to make me resent my fraternity brothers for never agreeing to that 80s part that I pushed for during my 3-and-a-half-year reign of terror. It would have ROCKED. Strangely, the song Take Me Home Tonight doesn't appear in the soundtrack… so, yeah, that curveball slung right past me.
