Movies dealing with teenage sexuality tend to be, unless they’re made by Larry Clark, pretty conservative. Mainstream comedies especially – from Pretty In Pink to American Pie to Superbad – for all their nudging and winking and supposed debauchery usually end with the message that losing one’s virginity, particularly for girls, is a sacred act only to be done in a loving relationship after much conversation and lighting of candles. It’s to Blockers' great credit that it lightens the hell up. Its teenage girls embrace their sexuality, make their own decisions to have or not have sex, and don’t find the whole situation terrifying. Their parents, not so much.
Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena) and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) have been friendly since their kids met on their first day of school. While they’ve drifted apart, their kids have become inseparable. As their respective children, Julie (Newton), Kayla (Viswanathan) and Sam (Adlon), prepare to graduate high school, they decide prom night will be the night they all lose their virginity. Julie is in a solid relationship. Kayla has identified a friend who seems a reasonable option. Sam is gay, but still wrestling with it, so will sleep with a guy 'to be sure'. Their parents ‘accidentally’ (by snooping and spying on them) discover what’s up and vow to block any and every penis getting anywhere near their girls.
Debut director Kay Cannon gets strong performances from all her cast.
There are tons of obvious ways that this story could go, but the script, by Brian and Jim Kehoe, takes very few of them. It’s silly and very funny, but it’s also really smart in how it treats both the adults and the kids. The scenes with the former are much broader, as their panic about their daughters growing up drives them to ever more ludicrous extremes, including Mitchell “butt-chugging” beer in order to crash a prom party the girls are attending, but they’re still rooted in a believable place: a fear that they’re no longer necessary. The girls seem authentically teenage, wanting to drink, experiment and take drugs without some awful horror befalling them for doing so. There’s zero moral finger-wagging. It’s quite a feat that every character is both amusing and sympathetic.
Debut director Kay Cannon, who wrote the three Pitch Perfect movies, keeps her comedy really tight. There’s none of that loose ‘we improvised this bit and were having too much fun to cut it’ feel you so often get in these types of comedies. A joke lands and she moves on. She gets strong performances from all her cast, especially Viswanathan and Cena, who really finds his feet as an actor here. Mann is obviously excellent because she always is. Hopefully there will be many more films to come from Cannon, because her first time was great for everyone.
