Everybody Wants Some!! is the second Paramount Picture in 5 years to feature “My Sharona” by The Knack. The fact that the other film is Super 8 tells you all that is needed about why a filmmaker chooses to put said song in the soundtrack. Obviously, it has partly to do with the setting (it’s the end of the 70’s, Sugarhill Gang have introduced rap into pop culture for the first time, and the Reagan Era is about to begin). But to use this song, in particular, is a declaration – that you’re making a film that’s meant to be nostalgic.
We’re dealing with Richard Linklater here, a pioneer of American independent film along the likes of Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino. Similar to those directors, he’s had his crossover successes with mainstream audiences, most notably 2003’s School of Rock. While a film like that and much of his “art house” repertoire exhibit his dry directorial style, a common criticism of his filmography is a reliance on nostalgia. More specifically, it is an argument that any (inevitable) retro pop culture artifact or reference that appears in his movies solely exists to remind the audience that, say, Disco was once a thing. “Hey, remember this?”
It is true that between this newest project and his last, the notoriously epic undertaking of Boyhood, Linklater does indeed use the contrasts of then and now to his advantage. But these criticisms assume that this is an inherently cheap and manipulative tactic. The reality, however, is that these films possess a rare and unsung power to demonstrate how time has molded us and is continuing to do so. Nowhere else in the prolific filmmaker’s catalogue is this more apparent than in the Before trilogy.
Whereas Boyhood explored a dozen different stages of youth and adolescence, Everybody Wants Some!! is content to focus on only one – coincidentally, it picks up where Boyhood left off: the last days before college. We spend most of the runtime with Jake (Blake Jenner), who is a new recruit in an amateur college baseball team deep in the heart of Texas. Jenner and the rest of the dudes (especially Expendables 3‘s Glen Powell) have impressive chemistry with one another. While the film is mostly concerned with the camaraderie of these young men, there’s also a believable romance between Jake and chance encounter Beverly (Zoey Deutch). Their relationship provides few moments of heartfelt sincerity amidst the authentic raunch of the baseball fraternity-of-sorts.
It’s after that last sentence one feels the need to distinguish Everybody Wants Some!! from the American Pie DTV sequels. Even in good teen sex comedies like Superbad, there’s a harshness that is wisely avoided here. While the film’s “heroes” are undeniably id-governed jocks, they are also… in a weird way… inclusive. Linklater has a gift for writing dialogue that is on the same wavelength as his characters, and it makes them endearing. In 2016, it’s tempting to look at the manifestations of “bro” culture and consider it a source of regression. But through his colorful characters and – what else? – nostalgia, Linklater presents a time where masculinity didn’t have to be unpleasant and bigoted. There are moments where Jake and the rest of the athletes find themselves at punk rock shows and thespian art school parties. Tourists? Perhaps. Posers? Not at all.
There’s no plot or character conflict to speak of here; the film counts down to the first day of classes for our baseball heroes, but where it ends is anybody’s guess. The film is one big joy ride, true to form for a film chronicling wild but decent Young Americans that have found themselves in the eye of the hurricane of change. At one point, a team member monologues about how he couldn’t understand living any life where he doesn’t end up playing professional baseball. The audience doesn’t really need American Graffiti‘s ending tiles to figure out what ends up becoming of these guys. It didn’t quite pan out that way.
Everybody Wants Some!! is rated R for language throughout, sexual content, drug use, and some nudity. Now playing in theaters everywhere.
