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| If you were hoping for a tell-all biography
of Don McLean, then American Pie is definitely not the movie for you.
Despite its R rating, this raucous-yet-charming teen sex comedy is clearly
aimed at the high school audience that it depicts. Not that it doesn't
provide ample entertainment for viewers not too far out of their teen
years to remember them. It's Fast Times at Ridgemont High upgraded for
the Internet generation -- Porky's 2.0 -- liberally dosed with Farrelly
Brothers-style gross-out gags and more than a touch of genuine sentiment.
Pie's plot, such as it is, involves four high school lads -- desperate to lose their virginity -- who make a pact to get laid by their senior prom. There's Jim, (newcomer Jason Biggs), the nice guy who just can't talk to girls; Oz (Election's Chris Klein), the jock whose buff bod conceals a sensitive soul; Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), the would-be sophisticate who makes jokes in Latin and drinks mochachino; and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) who, though he has a girlfriend, can't bring himself to utter the three little words that would get him past third base. Their separate strategies to score take each member of the hapless quartet in different directions, and often to hilarious conclusions. In a scene destined to be rewound endlessly by hormone-wracked teen boys across the country, Jim inadvertently sends a live Internet feed of his painfully inept encounter with a hot-to-trot exchange student (nicely nubile newcomer Shannon Elizabeth) to his school's entire student body. It's probably the funniest scene in the film, and the only one that actually features nudity. In fact, though the language is consistently vulgar, and there are sight gags involving masturbation, semen, and, yes, sex with baked goods, American Pie is not nearly as leeringly sexist as many of its '80s predecessors. The film's female characters are given personalities as developed as their figures. Though underused, Slums of Beverly Hills' Natasha Lyonne captures the perfect tone as the experienced girl who doles out advice on matters of sex. And Alyson Hannigan (Willow on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer) almost steals the movie as the geeky band nerd who's not quite the stereotype that she seems. First-time director Paul Weitz, working from a script by first-time screenwriter Adam Herz, has crafted a breezy ode to adolescent sexuality. Granted, there's plenty of toilet humor and dirty talk, but the film's underlying humanism prevents this from being just another dumb teen flick. The young, mostly unknown actors acquit themselves well, fleshing out the characters so that American Pie never descends to the level of moronic caricature. Alternately outrageous and sweet, it may not be quite as filling as a nice piece of pie, but it's certainly as tasty. |
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