While Rush Limbaugh loudly grouses about his disbelief that women need birth control and our nation watches one bill after another restrict access to abortion, it’s been a particularly rough time for women’s sexuality.
So what’s Hollywood’s answer to conservative fears that women will start becoming more loose and free-wheeling with their naughty bits? By giving them a movie of exactly that.
Brandi Klark (Aubrey Plaza, Safety Not Guaranteed and TV’s Parks and Recreation) has just graduated from high school as valedictorian, and she’s ready for anything — except sex. Or anything in that ballpark, really. After a brush with opportunity at a kegger in the form of Rusty (Scott Porter TV’s Friday Night Lights), she decides enough is enough. With her usual academic vigor, Brandy creates a list of activities she intends to complete by the end of the summer with the closest willing subject.
The film is set in 1993, so it’s not like she can just Google what any of these “jobs” are. It manages to move past the nostalgic ’90s quaintness early on, abandoning obvious jabs at things like VHS tapes and Encyclopedia Britannicas in favor of smarter jests, with assistance from Brandy’s gaggle of informed female friends.
One of the best things about her advisers — and “The To Do List” in general — is the refreshing reality endued in every role. Writer-director Maggie Carey allegedly mined her own personal experiences for the film, and it pays off in sincerity. With this style comes the delightful awkwardness of adolescence and sexual exploration, filled with embarrassment, joy, and every learning curve in between.
Like most films focused on teen sex, “The To Do List” can prematurely jump to gross-out comedy, which makes for a slightly uneven feel. It’s dispiriting, sure, but not distracting. When “The To Do List” is at its best, it sits back and lets the cast work its comedic magic with various physical gags and sexual knowledge.
Any awkward wrinkles in the script are helped by the all-star cast, most notably Bill Hader (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad) as Brandy’s slacker boss and Connie Britton (TV’s Spin City, and American Horror Story) and Clark Gregg (Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing) as her parents (who don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on sexual experiences). And the cast is led, of course, by Plaza’s delightfully detached comedic style.
Plaza brings a deadpan innocence to Brandy as she sets out to take her V-card by storm like many a teen-romp hero in the past. She’s a novel heroine, whose sexual agency and decision making is purely her own, and Plaza makes her independence feel refreshingly true and youthful.
The film’s too uneven to be the best teen-sex comedy ever made. But clearly its heart — and at its best moments, its mind — are in the right place. Like Brandy’s sexual misadventures, it’s not going to please everyone. But there is surely fun to be had along the way.
Verdict: While a bit sophomoric, the cast’s performance and Carey’s direction more than make the grade.
Pulp Diction 