************************This review contains mild spoilers****************************
Blockers is a story following the prom night and pending graduation of high school seniors Julie (Katherine Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), and Sam (Gideon Adlon). As the memorable night draws closer, the three lifelong friends make a pact to lose their virginity by the end of the night. The trio’s parents Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) find out about their kids’ plan and decide to try to stop their daughters from following through with it, leading to a wild and chaotic night.
While Blockers is a comedy, its story also includes a lot of heart and emotion woven in well with all its hijinks and jokes. The humor in Blockers avoids pithy one-liners and leans more toward the conversational and witty. There are bits such as the butt-chugging contest between Mitchell and the teenage host of a party determined to keep the older, snooping adults from crashing their party, but this type of slapstick is the exception rather than the rule. The most laugh out loud scenes in the film involved the interaction between adults from opposite sides of the sexuality spectrum as the main three characters are forced two times to creep around the house shared by Julie’s date Austin (Graham Phillips) and his parents (played by Gary Cole and Gina Gershon) to find their daughter’s location. Both bits involve raunchy, hypersexual humor that fully unleashed the comedic talent of its actors, most notably Cena and Barinholtz. Despite some enjoyable highs, I did expect to laugh much more than I did during the movie. Most of the jokes and humor present were chuckle worthy but did not generate a lot of audible, long-lasting laughs. While it certainly was a funny movie, it was more of a steady, chuckle rather than a riotous laugher.
The moral of the movie’s story is surprisingly substantive and more even-handed and progressive than the movie’s marketing led on. While the crux of the story is about preventing their daughters from having sex, Blockers does not take the double standard surrounding female and male sexuality as at face value and instead confronts it head on. In one of the more poignant moments in the film, Kayla asks her dad, after the treacherous journey he has embarked on to preserve her virginity, why sex is even so bad in the first place. Mitchell, with a mix of both confusion and clarity, says that he doesn’t even really have an answer to her question. This exchange represents a statement on American culture and its enduring policing of female sexuality and the importance of “purity” in assigning value and worth to women. Growing up in the United States, everyone is inundated with this patriarchal, Madonna-Whore Complex where women are either saintly objects or sexual ones good for pleasure and nothing more. This view is so ingrained in our culture that people, men in particular, internalize and accept it without even being cognizant of their doing so. The restraints and limitations placed on women’s enjoying and partaking in sex that are not placed on their male counterparts stifles the healthy mental development of both sexes and in its place, creates dysfunction. For women, that dysfunction takes the form of infantilization that ignores their agency and ability to make decisions for themselves that Blockers does a good job of highlighting and leaving open for discussion.
The film also presents an unexpectedly reflective subplot surrounding homosexuality that felt akin to another recent movie release involving high school teen self-discovery in Love, Simon. While Sam agrees to take part in the sex pact, what she does not disclose to her friends is the fact that she is a lesbian. In an effort to not feel left out, and to determine if the urges she feels are genuine, she goes along with the plan. Her father however is keenly aware of her sexual orientation and wishes to stop her participation in the pact not out of a desire to control her sexual expression, but to prevent her from being pressured into doing something she truly has no desire to do. It’s a sort of sweet twist for Hunter, as his relationship with Sam isn’t the best, and a nice bit of inclusion and extra depth for the movie’s story. The handling of this subplot is done with great care and understanding and is a great addition to what has been a winter of progress for representation for young LGBTQIA moviegoers.
The actors in Blockers are both hilarious and dramatic when the script calls for it. The chemistry both of the trios has onscreen is believable and substantial, buoyed by debut director Kay Cannon’s excellent choice to begin the film with a mock montage of homemade video documenting the childhood friends’ growth from kindergartners to high schoolers. Ike Barinholtz is the standout among the adult cast with his jokes and comedy being the best and his heartfelt arc going over very well. Geraldine Viswanathan steals the show for the teens showing a great sense of comedic timing and likability. John Cena also continues to cement his standing as a comedic actor and an overall onscreen performer. Making the transition to acting as such a recognizable personality can be tough but his work on this movie shows that he can be convincing as a new character and force audiences to forget they’re watching wrestling superstar John Cena.
While Blockers could have been slightly funnier, the humor that is present works and is consistent throughout. The film also includes a sizable amount of heartfelt emotion and social commentary that covers all sides of the eternal debate surrounding sexuality in American culture. Blockers is the perfect date night movie and also functions as a great family movie for those households that include teens due to the conversations it can spark between parents and their not so young anymore children. All in all, Blockers is a quality comedy that can be enjoyed by people from a multitude of perspectives.
Image: Universal Pictures
