Kay Cannon is a name you might not recognize, but you should know, because the comedy world is going to be getting a lot more of her. She made her name in TV on 30 Rock and New Girl, but she wrote the reigning college comedy champ, Pitch Perfect (and the sequels, where she probably got a lot of money). Using that a cappella money and clout, Cannon put herself in the directors chair for Blockers. As a premise, this movie sounds like crap: uptight parents stopping their girls from having sex on prom night. However, as directed by Cannon, Blockers modernizes the high school comedy for a new generation of woke kids, which is straight fire, like Cannon herself…though I’m the stupid one probably using slang incorrectly which Cannon is smart enough to NOT do.
Blockers (shortened from C*ckblockers) is about 3 families built around high school seniors. There’s single mom Lisa (Leslie Mann), fretting about her daughter Julie’s (Kathryn Newton) move to college, potentially to UCLA from Chicago. Athletic Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) can’t wait to graduate to be free from her smothering parents Marcie (Sarayu Blue) and especially Mitchell (John Cena). And finally, Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) is an absentee dad to his closeted gay daughter Sam (Gideon Adlon) who shows back up for her daughter’s big day, to the chagrin of everyone, especially Sam’s mother Brenda (June Diane Raphael) and her new husband Frank (Hannibal Burress). Sam, Kayla, and Lisa all make a pact to lose their virginites on prom night, which freaks out Lisa and Mitchell, so they decide to stop it, taking Hunter as their hostage, and hilarity ensues.
Blockers is dealing with material and stereotypes that were stale decades ago, amplifying the work of Cannon and her writers to modernize this story. Fortunately, the talented writer turned director herself is up to the task. The first big move is updating parental motivation. An older movie would have Lisa and Mitchell’s motivation be fear for slut shaming of their kids. Such is not the case with Blockers: the parents’ motivation is projection. A running gag of Lisa is she describes in explicit detail the worst case scenarios of prom night, which are clearly her own experiences, plus she’s not really concerned about the sex part, but about Julie’s UCLA college decision as filtered through the fear for peer pressured sex. Mitchell’s projection is probably seeing himself in Connor (Miles Robbins), thinking all boys are douche bags and that his showcase of strength is hiding at its center something scary: that he let his daughter down and didn’t make her as strong as he wants to be himself. This simple change works wonders because it fulfills the double purpose of really treating the female sexual experience as exciting for women as it is for guys, therefore not slut shaming the kids, and giving some character based shading for Lisa and Mitchell to make us understand and care for them even though what they are doing is stupid. Oh and I forgot, it inverts the moral high ground for Lisa and Mitchell to the at first bad guy Hunter, but the absentee parent LOVES his past, so he can easily see what is going on around him, including discovering his daughter is gay. Not only that, but the reason he stays with the adults is because he sees his daughter try to hook up with a guy, and thinks the other girls are pressuring her to do so, pretty noble for a “crappy” parent. On the kiddie’s side, Kayla, Julie, and even Sam are fully aware of what they are doing sexually and mostly excited to do so. Also, they realize that this might change them a little, but their friends have their back. Cannon includes several necessary scenes of the girls controlling where the night goes, including dancing with each other to their favorite song, buying sexy Walgreens candles, or traveling party to party making their nights great. The boys are part of the night, but this is THEIR perfect nights, and they choose where it will go (Julie searching for the perfect moment to hook up, Kayla tripping and expressing herself, Sam tracking down her LOTR caped girl crush).
Cannon also clearly wants Blockers to be Apatowian (think the 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, etc). That means it has to be funny and push buttons, especially sexually, but at Blocker’s center will be a good natured heart. Smartly, the most of the gags revolve around the adults (aside from one limo based sickness routine from the girls). The pratfall game from Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholtz is quite impressive, particularly Mann’s acrobatics in a hotel room. The best sex related gag (pun not intended, I’m SO sorry) involves a role playing cameo couple that is subtitled for what will be obvious reasons with hilarious consequences. The transitions from funny to sweet were 2/3 good, 1/3 a first time director’s mistake, but in general Cannon keeps the movie breezing along with funny while slowly peppering in the “Awwws”. Kathryn Newton and Gideon Adlon carry the emotional weight of the story, but they get to have fun as well (Newton gets an amazing line that I would agree with about Mounds candy bars) It’s easy to do when you have talent like the 6 leads onscreen. Geraldine Viswanathan is really fun as Kayla, holding her own with the talented adults and getting a lion’s share of the laughs including Blocker’s best line about her boyfriend being a chef; there’s a charisma to her that’s gonna be exciting to see for years to come. That being said, Blockers is a great success because of the adult comedians. Leslie Mann I don’t think is given super great material here, but she keeps finding ways to keep Lisa from falling into a basket case nag of a mother, and also turns in some impressive pratfally humor I didn’t know she could do. John Cena continues to threaten Dwayne Johnson’s spot on the “wrestler turned actor” hall of fame, stealing every scene he is in and finding this great mix of an overly tough uptight scared dad. If I had to pick a winner though, it’s Ike Barinholtz. I know that he can be funny, but I was pretty sure he lacked the ability to play anything other than a smug condescending trashy funny guy: think the worst guy in a fraternity. However, Barinholtz channels years of playing those dudes into a emotional turn I did NOT see coming, giving some really good monologues that completely fit the character and make you really feel for this guy who doesn’t know what to do.
Though not a generation defining classic, Blockers is still a smartly written comedy that’s filled with laughs. Kay Cannon proves that she’s got the chops to make a long career for herself on the big screen and I for one could not be happier. Why you say? Cause Cannon comes from the home of the high school comedy, the home of the great John Hughes, Chicago Illinois. Oh, and she’s really, really good at her job.