American Reunion
I've had my 10 year high school reunion and much like my Prom, I didn’t attend. I really didn’t see the point. I was never really close to anyone in my senior class and my people wouldn’t go to the reunion anyway. I do however fondly reminisce about my high school life and mostly the love I had for my radio class which allowed me a voice that I’ve maintained in writing stories, screenplays (yes I am the screenwriter who can’t so he critiques…works for Roger Ebert), and most recently in blog. So I didn’t feel the need to go to a reunion, that at best would make me feel I missed out in high school and at worst make me relive those moments where I was excluded (many times by my own choice) and get to see all the people who’ve married, gone bald, had success or had failures. Yes I would relish the chance to stick it to the popular kids who now live at home but most of my senior class is successful and (damn them) are probably going to stay that way. I’ve long since given up on grudges or hurt feelings but to see them have so much when I am still stuck having only a little can be counted as a reason why I am Mr. Unhappy and not Mr. Fulfilled or Mr. Satisfactory. I don’t have a girlfriend let alone a wife and to be honest, unless someone changes their mind and decides they want me I cannot see that changing. I don’t have kids, and I work a good job but not one that threatens to let me crack the 1 percent. I am nicely ensconced in the 99 percent and proud of it.
So going into American Reunion, I was really hoping to capture that reunion feeling and catch up with the friends I made through the original trilogy of American Pie movies that ended with the happy wedding of Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). This is as much my high school reunion as the actual San Rafael High class of 1996 would be. Some of my classmates are married (Jim and Michelle, Kevin), some have been out in the world living life (Finch), some are career rich and love poor (Oz, Vicki and Heather) and some are the same dicks they are in high school (Stifler). Life, for the most part, has been mostly good to the Pie gang. Also at play is Jim’s dad and how he is dealing with (or not dealing with) being a widower. Stifler has lived down to expectation and still lives at home with Mom who seems to be cryogenically frozen in time as the sultry black widow waiting for her son’s overly mature friends to fall into her web. There is truth in this story. For every group of friends, some will move forward and create good lives for themselves and others will have made mistakes and live far less fabulous lives. Most everybody will be slightly envious of what the other friend’s have. Yet like a class reunion, bringing this team together again provides an opportunity to see where life once was.
For the most part American Reunion succeeds as a reunion of the group and quickly they all fall into the misadventures that only a group of people (one of which has had sex with a pie) can get into. Stifler needs to appease his annoying dick of a boss and still bring back his former glories as the Stifmeister. Kevin needs to get away from his housewife life and when Tara Reid’s Vicki shows up deal with his feelings for his old girlfriend. Oz wants to see the old gang, recapture some of his ham handed innocence he once had and maybe rekindle his original Pie relationship with Heather (Mena Suvari). Jim has to try to balance hanging with the guys and his concerns that his wife may not find him sexually attractive anymore while she has the very same fears. Also on the plate for Jim is that the girl he used to babysit has become a fully grown 18 year old woman with a crush on her old babysitter. Finch is much like he was in high school, trying desperately to be more adult than he really is but is still looking for that elusive true love. I don’t know if this movie would work as well for someone who hasn’t seen the original movies. Not that it is too high brow for them, the jokes would still be funny but the nostalgia and reliving those moments that made you squirm in the first film. You wouldn’t have a connection with the team of unlikely but best of friends. The key is that they are old friends and the writers took that into account with their script. While many things have changed they are still the group of kids, desperately trying to get laid that they were in the first movie.
I really enjoy the group of friends who instead of saying goodbye and drifting apart, seem to be moving on to the next adventure, prepared and with hope together. As Robin Williams Peter Pan said in Hook “To live, will be a very big adventure.” So goes it with the American Pie gang. Was it hokey and over played? A little and I still think that Chris Klein is a little too earnest for my taste but I grew into a man with these movies. In many ways this movie was as good as going to my own high school reunion with the exception that I actually like these characters. The gross out gags, nudity and bad language make this another Pie movie that you’re 8 year old should not see but one that the 8 year olds Dad should definitely see. It is a reunion both as a movie and a generation of kids that grew up with Jim, Oz, Stifler and the gang. A look back at the simpler times when f**king a pie seemed like an idea. Ok that one never worked but it made sense to Jim as a character and therefore was an acceptable and hilarious moment for a teen who is seemingly constantly trying to find something new to stick their dick in. The reason these movies work is not because Jim f**ked a pie but because we cared what happened to the baked goods loving kids after they graduated, after they returned from college, when the girl who stuck a flute in her p***y married the guy who f**ked the pie and what happened to them all as they began their own lives. I think what American Reunion does well is maintain the relationship between the characters and with the audience as well. It reunites you with some friends that given two hours, you don’t mind spending time with.
Mr. Unhappy Sez: I cannot say whether I loved the movie or the reminder to my own past when I was a bit cooler and a little less old but I liked the movie regardless.
