Superbad is the funniest movie since The 40-year-old Virgin, which is the last movie to evoke honest, well-earned laughter, not the willed laughter of an obvious Steve Martin/Queen Latifah slapstick marathon. It also makes the film’s producer, Judd Apatow, who wrote and directed Virgin and the recent Knocked Up, the Steven Spielberg of comedy, or maybe even the new Billy Wilder.

Superbad is an American Graffiti for right now, rather than a decade earlier. In the tradition of the great teen sex comedies of the ’70s and ’80s, the film takes place in a 24-hour period wherein a couple of nerdy guys tried to get laid as a farewell to high school. Their adventures along the way should evoke memories in everyone no matter how tangential their relationship with high school. For a brilliant account of the genre as a whole, consult this great essay by Andy Selsberg from The Believer.

What Superbad gets right is that though nerds may be meek around bullies and uncomfortable around girls, they are just like other guys when around each other: creatively and aggressively foul-mouthed, competitive, horny, and just as full of adrenaline and testosterone as their more “masculine” tormentors. And it’s also about the solace of male friendship in a world that makes it hard for non-classic males to find intimacy with the opposite sex (in fact, the last minute of the film carries one of the saddest “farewells” in all of film history).

Another thing the film gets right is the kind of music that would be in these kids’ heads, which isn’t the doleful singer-songwriter stuff of the day or the latest preening sex champion band, but soul music, which tends to be happy, celebratory, and encouraging, thus mirroring the ever-hopeful psychology of the ever-grasping nerds.

Superbad is a must see because it is an accurate account of the American experience. And it has a clever subplot concerning two cops (Bill Hader and script writer Seth Rogen) who are like adult versions of what Evan (Arrested Development’s Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill) might become if it weren’t for the adventures of this special night.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Reel Politique - Film columnist DK Holm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.