My Issues with the "spiritual successor", Everybody Wants Some
It’s Richard Linklater’s film that
he’s described as a “spiritual successor” to Dazed and Confused (D&C). If you’ve seen Dazed then you’ll remember
that Mitch Kramer is a baseball player, and probably a pretty decent one. In my mind Everybody Wants Some (EWS) is the college freshman
adventures of Mitch Kramer, except Mitch is now named Jake Bradford, and is starting college in the fall of 1980. Like D&C, EWS also takes place in a condensed period of time. Jake shows up at college as a pitcher on the
baseball team, and must deal with hazing and indoctrination from the baseball
team upper classmen. Pretty much
everyone likes Jake and he is shown to have many friends across many
cliques. Not surprisingly, it seems Jake
a/k/a Mitch Kramer has grown up to be an everyman like his Senior High School
influence, Randall “Pink” Floyd. Like D&C, EWS is also basically about
“nothing”, just the potentially life-changing experience of your first weekend
at college and making relationships that may last the rest of your life. With that said…
My Issues with Everybody Wants Some
-
The Cast. While there are some good performers and
performances, the cast on a whole is not at the level required to pull off an
ensemble piece that lasts 2 full hours (D&C is decidedly shorter at 1:42) and
is essentially about “nothing” (D&C is also about “nothing”, but the cast
and characters carry it). Also (and this
can be applied a little bit to D&C, but just a little bit), the male
characters portraying the older college players look like they are in their late
20s, not early 20s, and the reason why is that many of them were in the 26-28yo range during filming. Most had a bunch
of previous acting experience, whereas D&C was filled with mostly
inexperienced kids. They just aren’t
appropriately aged and it shows. There were some older people cast as high school kids in D&C, but they pulled it off because they looked younger. In EWS, it’s like they just
decided that if you’re a freshman, you can’t have facial hair (to make you “look
young”) and if you’re an upper classman, you need to have a mustache to “look
older”. The big problem is that the
facial hair makes the older guys look even older. I also feel sad that the one female role of
consequence is played by a good actress, Zooey Deutch, and she isn’t given much
to work with.
-
The Timeline. If you’re going to bill it as a spiritual
successor to D&C then I kind of expect a 24-hour timeline, but EWS happens
over the course of 3.5 days, give or take a few hours. OK, no big deal, but there's supposed to be at least a bit of a buildup
(a la to the party at the Moontower in D&C). Sadly, there is very little buildup in EWS.
-
The Characters.
While D&C was definitely told from predominantly male points of view (Mitch & Pink), it still had some very strong
counterpoint female views, powerful female characters and plenty of dialogue for the female characters. In D&C, females go through hazing just
like the males, and the contrast and counterpoint is a strong feature of the
film. Just the D&C scene of the
girls in the bathroom talking about Gilligan’s Island episodes is more of a
female presence than anything in EWS. D&C
has a wide variety of characters and personalities – some are jocks, some are
intellectuals, some don’t fit in at all.
In EWS, the main characters are all male, all on the college baseball
team, and all very competitive in whatever they do – drinking, bong hits, foam
indoor basketball, darts, etc. Some are
geekier or cooler or meaner or more gullible, whatever, but underneath they are
pretty similar – high-end, super-competitive jocks. This lack of variety
becomes inherently boring. There’s almost
nothing on the female counterpoint. 40
minutes into the movie and females only have lines when they are spoken to by
male characters, and their only function is to serve as sexual or romantic prospects
for the males. One hour and six minutes
into EWS and there are still no female characters of note or importance. We don't learn the one major female character’s name until the one hour and eight minute mark! And even then, much like other
characters/actors in EWS, she's just not that compelling. There’s a good attempt at showing Jake (and
Finn) as a clique-crossing everyman, as Mitch and Pink are portrayed in D&C,
I’ll give it that. But the cliques are so much narrower in EWS it just doesn’t
have the same effect. The everyone-saw-it-coming
hazing ritual for the “new guys” just feels cheap.
-
The Characters
Part II. The characters aren't as interesting or well written as D&C.
There is one character (Willoughby) who is supposed to be kind of the
Wooderson of EWS. Now, the two characters
are pretty different, and he’s definitely not the same guy as Wooderson, but it
kinda fills that area in the sense that he's an older guy, laid back but still cool, the younger guys
look up to him a bit. And this is where The Cast intersects with The Characters. Both the actor and the character are just not
that interesting and the ultimate purpose of the character is not impacting or
interesting - in fact he just disappears 2/3rds of the way into the
movie, never to be seen again. Yeah,
it’s part of the plot and some may argue that him disappearing is the whole
point, but again it’s ineffective at making any impact on the viewer other than
bewilderment. Another side note: there’s not much interaction with adult
characters compared to D&C. That’s
saying a lot, as there are very few adults in D&C, but the few that do
appear make a big impression (Carl’s mom with the shotgun, the liquor store
clerk, the old man with the gun looking for mailbox revenge). Perhaps it's intentional and possibly appropriate
for a movie set in college where freedom rules, but lacking in my mind nonetheless. And once again, there is only one black character
among the main ensemble cast, same as D&C. D&C takes place in a small high school in a smaller town, so ok, but a college baseball team in 1980 having one person of color?
-
The
Setting. Any nostalgia/period piece
film that involves college and living in a house (even though it’s not a frat,
it might as well be Delta Tau Chi Baseball) with wild parties runs the risk of
comparisons to Animal House and that will most likely not be a favorable one as Animal House is the gold standard for college comedy. Also amazing is that this is a film about a
college baseball team and there is not one scene on the field or even in the
clubhouse until the one hour 15 minute mark of a 2 hour movie. It depicts the first voluntary workout, and they
don’t even cover any "for real" practices or games. One could argue that the "workout" is really a practice, I suppose. This would actually be kinda cool if the first hour and 15 mins was
strong enough that you never noticed. Not knowing the time frame of the film going in, I
kept thinking, “Well, maybe something more interesting will happen when they
start to play.” And this isn’t me going
all Universal on Linklater, like when they wanted the football players in
D&C to actually play football. D&C had some football players in it, but the season was long over. This
movie is exclusively all about baseball players at the start of the Fall season. Almost every main character is a baseball
player. I really thought that more scenes
on the field would play into the strengths of the characters.
-
The
Ending. Linklater talked a lot about
how to end D&C and how tough it was and how do you end a film that is
basically about nothing but a slice of life.
Ending D&C with some of the main characters going to the closest big
city to get Aerosmith tickets is pretty acceptable in my book, and feels right with the car headed down the road with the unknown on the horizon. It’s referenced multiples times throughout
the movie, too, including the paramount scene at the football field with Pink. Ending EWS with two freshmen falling asleep in
their first class before it even begins is a weak ending that serves no purpose.
Am I supposed to believe this is the way
their academic careers will go for 4 years?
That they are going to get a rough start but figure it out? That big sport team members don't need to worry about academic performance in college? I don't know.
Final Arguments
I’m glad anytime Linklater gets to
make a film. I’m glad he got to do his
“spiritual sequel” to D&C, that he got Schlitz to agree to their brand
use (he wanted them for D&C and they refused), and that he got all the early1980s-era
music he wanted including the title of the film (which he didn’t get on
D&C). He even throws in a the Gilligan’s Island callback reference, etc.
I’m glad he got to shoot more foosball and pool and pinball scenes
(which he loved doing on D&C). I’m
glad he shot a lot of car/parking lot moments to start EWS (although nothing
needs to be said about Sweet Emotion vs My Sharona, c'mon). I love the Twilight Zone references
(Willoughby and his homemade Twilight Zone VHS tapes).
But EWS is a one-dimensional, boring film
compared to D&C. Don’t get me wrong
- the film has moments, and I do love the way it uses the music (not as much as I love D&C's use of music, but still very good). I suppose
in the end it is what it is: Linklater’s college memories condensed into a
film. For me, it just isn’t as interesting or well-written
or well-acted or well-cast as D&C.
Which is no crime, since Dazed and Confused is a complete masterpiece. The disturbing parts of D&C are more
disturbing than anything in EWS. The
universal human element in D&C, the relatability of the characters and experiences, is about a million times stronger than what
is found in EWS.
As far as reception, both critical
and public, things are a mixed bag. Much
like D&C, EWS did not make a lot of money at the box office. Budget was $10 million (which is actually
really impressive for a film made in 2015, considering D&C’s budget was $6.9 million in 1992) but box office was only $4.6 million. Maybe the word didn’t get out there that this
was sort of a D&C sequel. I would’ve
thought that a movie even somewhat related to D&C, in the year 2015 when
D&C is a popular, celebrated film in our pop culture, would do pretty
decently at the box office. I would
certainly expect it, in 2015, to make more money than D&C did in 1993, but
it was not the case.
You could take that as a sign that
the audience rejected the film. Yet
critically it held its own – a 6.9 on IMDB and 87% fresh on Rotten
Tomatoes. That is still a ways short of
D&C’s 7.6 on IMDB and 91% fresh.
However, ultimately Rotten Tomatoes gives us the answer that yes,
audiences have rejected the film.
D&C is 91% fresh with critics and 90% fresh with the audience. EWS is 87% fresh with critics and only 68%
fresh with the audience. Any way you cut
it, it’s just not the film that D&C is, not even close.
Respectfully,
Moontower Man
P.S. – Willoughby can go screw
himself. In 1980, Van Halen was not "corporate" rock for fuck’s sake. Styx, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Journey,
sure. Van Halen? Not quite yet, buddy (and anyone who is wondering, I like all of the above bands to varying degrees, so I'm not hating on corporate rock, I just want things labeled correctly if we're gonna label).
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