Opening Day: 18 October 2007

Synopsis:

"Superbad" revolves around two co-dependent high school seniors (Hill and Cera) who set out to score alcohol for a party, believing that girls will then hook up with them and they will be ready for college. But as the night grows more chaotic, overcoming their separation anxiety becomes a greater challenge than getting the girls.

Movie Review:

It would seem that giving Judd Apatow and his cadre the benefit of the doubt is the simplest thing in the world given their track record of “having your cake and eating it too” type subversion in their patented trend of the (Post) Modern Hollywood Comedy. After a string of commercial and critical hits, there’s a familiar whiff of apologetic crassness and the affable insights into the core of its audience’s insecurities by handily identifying its self-deprecation. Decidedly, these films actually care about their characters, by not just offering up a troupe of hopeless morons and insufferable sociopaths in a world of comparative “normality” and then bending over to the temptation of presenting them as humourous instead of the sideshows they tend to devolve into. Indeed, writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg identify with their feckless protagonists enough to name them Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera).

“Superbad” sets its agenda right off the bat, by endeavouring to put the innocence and intrigue back into the province of sexuality. As for most teenagers, the common gateway to this province is quite simply porn. It’s how these highly sexualised females, inscrutable to the point of extrinsic, gorgeous to the point of celestial, lay available to these boys on the verge on manhood at every minute of every day. The point lingers, then starts to seep in that genuine eroticism is an undervalued commodity in the world, as opposed to the manufactured carnality that the luckless Seth and Evan are inundated with, which ultimately leads to shaping their views on the opposite sex on the vulgarity of base compulsion. What “Superbad” truly attempts actually approaches the deconstruction of the subgenre of comedy (the gross-out-teen-sex-raunchfest) that it sells itself together with by questioning its own motives, sensitively charting out its charming losers’ trek to barter alcohol for cherry-poppers.

This enlightened depth of insight into the psyche of teenagers fraught with the virulent taint of virginity sustains “Superbad” remarkably well. There’s a reservoir of teenage anxieties being tapped that are delivered with understanding and frayed nerves by Hill and Cera that on the outset are portrayed as punchlines but slyly existing on a level of angst that evinces the real nature of their earthly pursuits. And yes, it is all very funny as well.

Movie Rating:

(Funny and eloquent, one of the better films of the year)

Review by Justin Deimen