Originally titled The Hand Job (which would have replaced Little Fockers as “title least likely to be said on network television”), The To Do List fills the annual quota for this summer’s teenage sex comedy, the kind that try to raise the bar on sex humor by lowering it. It certainly is a lot smarter than the average sex comedy and a solid first effort from writer/director Maggie Carey, yet it’ll never be mentioned in the same breath as anybody’s all-time favorites of the genre.
Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) is an extreme overachiever and the valedictorian of the class of 1993 at her high school in Boise, Idaho (though the Idaho of The To Do List, which was shot in California, looks nothing like the Idaho in Napoleon Dynamite, which was actually shot in Idaho). However, since Brandy has been obsessed with being an academic all-star she has no sexual experience to speak of. The night of her graduation she attends a keg party with her best friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele). While there she instantly falls in love with long-haired, hot musician Rusty Waters (Scott Porter). When Rusty almost hooks up with a drunk Brandy by accident (with Brandy telling Rusty, “You feel like Marky Mark looks”), Brandy’s lack of experience is revealed. As a result, Brandy makes a to do list of every sexual experience she can think of that leads up to sex with Rusty, which she is committed to completing by the end of the summer. She uses her former lab partner Cameron (Johnny Simmons) as someone she checks a number of these activities off with, but she does not realize that Cameron has an unrequited crush on her. She balances this mission with her summer job as a lifeguard at the local pool with Rusty and Cameron under the supervision of the laid-back Willy (Bill Hader). All of this is complicated by Brandy’s relationship with her family: her slutty older sister Amber (Rachel Bilson), her sexually comfortable mother (Connie Britton), and her conservative judge father (Clark Gregg, who steals every scene he is in). And naturally nearly every experience she checks off her list features some kind of funny mishap.
Despite sharing similarities with just about every teenage sex comedy released in the last dozen years, what’s most clever about The To Do List is that it is set in 1993. Without the Internet, Brandy and the other characters are often clueless about the specifics regarding some of the sexual experiences and don’t know who to ask (for example, Christopher Mintz-Plasse‘s character has an interesting concept of dry-humping). While the setting certainly adds a lot to the humor, the movie is also filled with several groan-inducing easy jokes about outdated technology (the kind in which dimwit audiences are supposed to think, “Hey, look, a beeper! That’s hilarious!”). Another issue is that the tone of the humor is sometimes off. In particular, there is one scene involving a “floater” in the pool (you know what I mean) which is completely out of place. It seems like a gag out of a totally different movie. It’s not that I found the scene offensive, but it’s too easy and low-brow of a joke for an otherwise clever script.
While this is a really strong cast (I haven’t even mentioned everyone worth mentioning), I can’t help but think that Plaza wasn’t the best choice for the lead role. In the first place she’s almost twice the age of her character, and while she looks young she doesn’t look young enough (of course, most of the “teenagers” in this film are well north of twenty). In all honesty, she’s pretty annoying throughout the film making me less interested in her “journey” than the other characters. I guess that was sort of the point based on her character’s personality and Plaza’s style of comedy, but I think more could of gotten out of the character with a less dry humor approach.
Carey, a writer/director for Funny Or Die Presents… (and wife of star Bill Hader) seems uncomfortable with treating sex like it’s not such a big deal, yet at the same time uncomfortable with treating it like something so sacred it should be saved for someone special. I’m not puritanical enough to demand that she needs to convey some sort of message about sex in The To Do List, but I do expect there to be a consistent tone here since she’s building up to a “message moment” in the climax. Sure, sex is confusing for most teenagers and there’s not a single answer that applies to everybody, but why even make morality an issue if the film isn’t brave enough to answer its own questions?
Then again, why am I questioning the moral message of a movie that features someone taking a dump in a pool?
Rating: A sometimes clever, but hardly hysterical, teenage sex comedy (5/10).
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