Summer Of 69 (2025)

I know this may seem like a strange thing to say, especially coming from someone as far away from their teen years as I am now, but there have been some absolutely fantastic teen comedies released over the past few years. One or two have been noticed, but a couple of them seem to have been sadly overlooked or ignored. Incoming is one that I tried to bring some attention to a few months ago. Summer Of 69 is the one I am recommending today.

As the school year comes to an end, Abby (Sam Morelos) decides that it's time to get what she wants. And what she wants is Max (Matt Cornett). She figures she can get Max by giving him what he wants, which is the sexual pleasure of a 69, apparently. The only problem is that Abby is not experienced in sexual matters, at all. So she hires a stripper/escort (Santa Monica, played by Chloe Fineman) who she believes can teach her all she needs to know. She's going to offer $20,000, which will give Santa Monica the money she needs to stop her workplace being sold to a sleazy new owner (Charlie Day).

The feature directorial debut of Jillian Bell, who has spent most of her career in a variety of comedy roles in films covering an entire range from awful to great, Summer Of 69 has a great cast of characters, a load of references to other teen movies (and, considering the main premise, it has particular fun with Risky Business moments), and, most importantly, plenty of laughs. Bell also co-wrote the screenplay with Jules Byrne and Liz Nico, and the end result is a very clever use of teen movie tropes to create that strangely brilliant blend of the lewd and the sweet that some of the best teen movies have.

The cast all help a lot, particularly Morelos in the lead role. She may not have been in the business long, relatively speaking, but this is the kind of performance that should have her actively pursued by those wanting to make use of her comedic skills. She's great at delivering the dialogue, keeping a straight face in the middle of a load of absurdity (the film has her character often disappearing into daydreams as she considers her plans), and fully committing to the moments that are all about physical comedy as her awkwardness clashes against her attempts to learn how to be sexy. Fineman is very good alongside Morelos, and she's allowed to be a mix of strong exterior and vulnerable interior, allowing her to embody the standard teacher who also has to learn a lesson or two of her own. Cornett is allowed to play his desirable male without being a complete pig, helped by the fact that he spends most of the movie unaware of how Abby feels about him. Day is a lot of fun as a sleazy pig, Paula Pell is very funny as Betty Spaghetti, Natalie Morales is decent as a woman who seems to be everything that Santa Monica isn't, and Fernando Carsa is very amusing and entertaining as someone who can offer advice to everyone at the school while he's hidden underneath a large team mascot outfit.

I smiled all the way through this, even though here were some minor things I could pick at (look, I'm not being a perv, but it's strange to see films that feature strippers, or a strip club, in so many scenes without having any of the strippers actually looking as if they take their tops off . . . but that's what you get when the film isn't all about indulging the male gaze, which is as understandable as it is unbelievable). The 101-minute runtime feels perfect, the soundtrack has some excellent choices (including a track at the end of the film that references another classic teen movie), and it's heartwarming to see the lessons being learned by the two leads, especially when viewers are often one or two steps ahead of them.

I really cannot think of who would dislike this. It has clever gags, it has clever dumb gags, it has an entertaining ebb and flow between sexual honesty and naivety, and Morelos and Fineman work as well together as any other two comedy leads I can think of. Get to it when you want a good laugh. If you end up disappointed then I'll throw out my fluffy animal costume and refrain from offering any more movie advice to those who metaphorically sit down beside me.

9/10

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No Hard Feelings (2023)

Walking a tightrope between raunchy fun and hard-to-overlook ickiness, No Hard Feelings is a disappointingly tame sec comedy that has not enough of either the sex or the comedy. If you have been put off by the central premise (Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman so desperate for money that she answers an ad placed by two parents who want her to give their son a full girlfriend experience) then I would simply say that the script, co-written by John Phillips and Gene Stupnitsky, works hard to make everything much sweeter and more palatable, arguably to the detriment of the comedic potential of the whole thing.

Lawrence is Maddie Barker, someone we first see panicking as her car gets taken away. She needs the cat to earn money as an Uber driver, allowing her to pay off an overdue amount of tax on the house that was left to her by her mother. Maddie is a bit of a mess, for a number of reasons, but she tries to put on a different persona when answering the aforementioned advert, placed by two parents who don’t want their son to know anything about the scheme. It has to seem natural and real, and Maddie believes she will easily present herself as a fine catch. Unfortunately, the young man (Percy Becker, played by Andrew Barth Feldman) is so painfully shy and awkward, and so unable to pick up on social cues, that a successful outcome seems far from guaranteed. Maddie soon learns that he’s also very sweet, which is a development/complication that she didn’t even consider.

The main strength here is Lawrence, who leans fully into any ridiculous moment her character is thrown into. Whether she’s insulting people who are delivering unwanted judgements, sharing the class-based chip on her shoulder, or delivering so many double entendres that quickly devolve into sledgehammering single entendres, Lawrence is a lot of fun, and it’s clear that she should try her hand at it more often. Feldman is also very good, perfectly embodying the kind of nervy and good-hearted nerd that would have been placed as the super-horny lead if this film has been made in the 1980s. The concerned/slightly creepy parents are well-played by Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti, both seemingly oblivious to the oddness of their approach to dealing with, and trying to help, their son. Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur are fairly enjoyable as friends of Maddie, sometimes offering advice and sometimes criticising her choices, and Ebon Moss-Bacharach has a very amusing turn as the man who tows away Maddie’s car while wondering aloud why she broke off their short relationship without giving him any explanation or second chance.

Stupnitsky directs the whole thing with a disappointing lack of energy, not helped by the script that he and Phillips should have taken apart and rebuilt once they realised it wasn’t really working. And they should have realised that it wasn’t really working when the entire third act became far too dull and depressing. There are positives, but they are too little too late when it comes to outweighing the negatives, almost as if the film-makers forgot what kind of film they started with. It isn’t as if this is uncommon, many films like this one decide to push the laughs aside as the scene is set for a grand finale of rehabilitation and renewed love (be it for a character or just for life itself), but they have usually taken viewers on a more enjoyable journey before getting to that point.

It’s not dire, and I smiled a number of times as predictable moments played out, but this is hugely disappointing, and it lacks even one memorable set-piece (aside from one scene notable for Lawrence playing it completely nude, which gets more sad the more I think about it . . . THAT is the best you could come up with for a set-piece idea?). Either make a sweet rom-com or make a ballsy sex comedy. This neutered end result will, I suspect, end up pleasing less people as it tries to please everyone.

4/10

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