I wonder what John Hughes would think about Brandy Clark and the To Do List. Writer/Director Maggie Carey’s debut film contains pieces of an 80’s high school film, but ratchets up the raunchiness to a 10. Despite its overt repetition of awkward sex acts, The To Do List is at times a very funny picture with some fun spins on the teen sex comedy.
Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) is the anal retentive valedictorian of her Boise high school. Before she goes to college, Brady learns from her sister Amber (Rachel Bilson) that college is like a sexual pop quiz, so Brandy creates a To Do List of sex acts to try before culminating with intercourse with local heart-throb Rusty Waters (Scott Porter). Encouraging Brandy along her journey are her friends Fiona (Alia Shawkat), Wendy (Sarah Steele), and Willy (Bill Hader, also her boss); and her mom (Connie Britton) but definitely NOT her dad (Clark Gregg).
And so begins our descent into the 90’s genre movie. The opening credits make it very clear what decade we are in, and The To Do List beats the aspect of the decade into the ground. Music choices are obvious and bordering on annoying as the story goes along, and lines like “electronic mail” and “rent the VHS tapes” reek of low hanging fruit. However, when servicing the plot, little jokes here and there are subtle and fun like Brandy’s Trapper Keeper.
Maggie Carey must have been caught in the act a lot; much of The To Do List’s jokes rely on someone barging in on Brandy in the middle of an act. The To Do List does up the ante on the gross factor of the acts (particularly the blowjob scene), but like the rest of the movie it gets repetitive after a while. Also, subplots here don’t work very well if the topic of discussion is not Brandy. When the story focuses on the awkward flirting and escalation of sexual acts, the To Do List generates its biggest laughs, particularly when Brandy bounces ideas off her friends or family.
The success of the film relies upon Aubrey Plaza. Despite her old age (30 playing 18), Plaza nails the type A Brandy and the awkward flirting; this character is a more forceful version of her Parks and Recreation character, making it easy for Plaza to find a relatable angle for the audience. Adam Pally, Bill Hader, Alia Shawkat, Johnny Simmons, Donald Glover, Rachel Bilson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jack McBrayer, Scott Porter, and Andy Samberg give Maggie Carey an awesome All-Star Cast of working comedians that can create an enjoyable film in their sleep. Two actors stand out here though outside of Plaza, and they are her parents: Connie Britton has fun being a casually honest sexually aware mother, and Clark Gregg gets a laugh anytime he is on-screen with his uptight approach to talking about sex with his daughters. In a movie with all these comedians, Gregg and Britton get the best laughs playing against type.
The To Do List puts a fresh spin on the teen sex comedy. Instead of idealizing the deed, the movie chooses to treat it like a part of life and casually deals with its consequences. The debut of writer/director Maggie Carey is a solid one, and I look forward to her films in the future. I do have one piece of advice though: if you do more 90’s films, can you make more outfits with t-shirts and plaid overshirts? I’d like to see that trend come back.