CAN'T HARDLY WAIT

CAN’T HARDLY WAIT

SPOILER ALERT

Back in the 1990s I often referred to Ethan Embry as ‘the boy who’s in everything’.  Turned out I was wrong because I sometimes confused him with Giovanni Ribisi, and although neither had a role in “everything”, the two young actors were cast in a lot of the movies that came out at the time.  They even appeared together in That Thing You Do.  In my defense, the Amazon series, Sneaky Pete which ran from 2015 to 2019, casts Giovanni as a con man named Marius Josipovic who steals the identity of his cell mate, Pete Murphy, which is played by Ethan.  Marius manages to fool almost everyone, including the real Pete’s relatives, because he and Pete have such a strong resemblance.  Of the films that Ethan actually appeared in, however, one of my faves is Can’t Hardly Wait.   This is another one of those coming-of-age movies that immerses a tale of unrequited love in a teens-gone-wild scenario where the kids are more interested in sex than anything else, and popular athletes are bested by their nerdy classmates.

The movie opens the day of high school graduation, but the seniors are a lot more interested in two bits of gossip that are floating around than they are in the ceremony.  The first rumor is that there is a big party that evening which everyone is invited to and the second is that football star Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli) has dumped his girlfriend of four years, Amanda Beckett (Jennifer Love Hewitt).  Somewhat dorky Preston (Ethan Embry), who has had a crush on Amanda all through high school, tells his best friend Denise (Lauren Ambrose) that they have to go because, now that Amanda is free, he can give her the love letter he has been writing and revising since Freshman year.  Denise, who considers herself the biggest outsider in school, hates student gatherings and tries to talk him out of it.  Failing at that, she agrees to accompany him.  That night on the way to the bash, the song “Mandy” by Barry Manilow begins playing on the radio and Preston interprets that to mean that the time is right for him to tell Amanda how much he loves her.  Denise, in retaliation for being dragged somewhere she doesn’t want to go, sarcastically points out that the song is actually about the singer’s dog. 

By the time they get to the party, the place is packed.  Everyone is there, from uber popular Mike Dexter  and his jock pals to Billy Lichter (Charlie Korsmo), the senior class brain and coolest of the uncool kids, and Kenny Fisher (Seth Green) the rich white guy that dresses and talks like a gangsta and goes by the moniker Special K.   Although not really part of any particular crowd, Preston is well enough liked to be comfortable mingling with kids of all statuses while looking for Amanda.  She arrives soon after Preston gets there and is greeted by her high school friends who just happen to be the girlfriends of Mike’s buddies.  Not wanting to hang out with that crowd, anymore, Amanda excuses herself and walks away.  When Preston hears that his secret love is at the party, he goes in search of her and finally spies her talking to a guy he doesn’t know.  Just as Preston starts to approach her, he sees the guy lean over for a kiss, but he doesn’t stick around long enough to learn that the boy is Amanda’s cousin Ron (Eric Palladino) and that his advances are rebuked.

Preston decides that he’s never going to have a chance with Amanda, walks outside, tosses the letter in a trash can, and drives away with the intention of going home.   A little later, a girl (Melissa Joan Hart) digs through the garbage looking for her lost yearbook, and when she pulls it out, the envelope comes too.  It falls to the ground and from there is rolled across the yard on a beer keg, carried inside on the soles of someone’s shoe, and finally picked up and put on a table where Amanda spies it.  Noticing that it is addressed to her, she opens it, extracts the letter, and reads it.  She is deeply touched by Preston’s sincere message and begins asking people if they know him.  The irony is not lost on Preston’s friends who can’t help but respond that he sat next to her in English class for a full year.   

Preston is not the only guy not having a good time, however.  Amanda’s ex, Mike, is encountering many disappointments as well.  He thought his friends would follow his lead and dump their girlfriends so the four of them could spend the summer together as free men, but when their dates show up, the guys all chicken out.  Next, he asks girls out that he is sure have been crushing on him all through high school, only to learn that they hate him because he spent the last four years demeaning them.  He goes outside to figure out how things have suddenly gone so wrong and former football star Trip McNealy (Jerry O’Connell) shows up.  Mike comments that Trip must be a big man on campus with all those good-looking girls to go out with.  To his surprise, Trip says he hasn’t been dating at all because, unlike high school girls who are interested in jocks, college women want serious boyfriends who can talk about stuff like world issues.  Then he relates that, to make matters worse, he broke up with his high school girlfriend, so he’d be single in college and now she won’t take him back because she is dating someone going to the university.   Trip’s mistakes alert Mike to what could happen to him, and he rushes inside to get Amanda back before it is too late.  To his utter shock, she pushes him away and says she isn’t interested.  To get back at her, he asks who she thinks will want her now that he’s done with her.  Rather than falling for the ploy, she shows him Preston’s letter and says that she knows somebody does.  As she walks away, the entire senior class bursts into laughter. 

In the meantime, on his way home Preston once again hears Mandy playing on the radio.  When the song ends, the DJ explains that it is Barry Manilow’s birthday and invites listeners to call in and try to win a chance to speak with the iconic singer in person.  Preston pulls up to a phone booth (look it up) to try his luck, but while he’s waiting for someone at the radio station to answer, a young woman (Jenna Elfman) wearing an angel costume walks up, explains that her car broke down, and says she needs to call a cab (there weren’t any cell phones either).  When Preston hesitates, she reaches in and disconnects his call so she can use the phone.  She pulls him out of the phone booth, closes the door, calls for a taxi (there was no Uber then), then sits down to wait for her ride.  Preston joins her and they begin talking.  He explains that he believed Amanda was destined to be with him, but things have gone so wrong all evening, he’s decided fate doesn’t exist.  Taking pity on him, the angel tries to help by divulging her philosophy which is that destiny does exist, but sometimes it needs a helping hand.  Preston thinks about this, and after the cab pulls away, he heads back to the party.

He arrives just after Amanda has walked away from Mike, and as she has made her way through the house, guys have come up to her, asking for sex and making other inappropriate comments.  Therefore, when Preston catches up to her and declares his love, she accuses him of just being another sleazeball who is only interested in using her.  Crushed, Preston gives up and goes home.  Shortly thereafter, the yearbook girl asks Amanda for her signature; Amanda grabs the book, looks up Preston’s picture, and realizes to her horror that she just blew him off.  Tired of the whole scene, she also leaves.  The next morning Amanda goes by Preston’s house to apologize and his father tells her that Preston is attending a writing workshop taught by Kurt Vonnegut that summer and is at the train station.  She gets there just as he is getting ready to board, tells him that she is sorry, and asks for another chance.  Being a nice guy, Preston forgives her and opts to take a later train.  She writes him every day he’s away and they live happily ever after. 

As for Mike, he ends up hanging out with Billy for the rest of the evening and when the police show up, they run away to hide.    They are so drunk, however, that they pass out which gives Billy’s friends a chance to sneak up, pose them suggestively, and take photos that can be used against Mike later.  The cops find the pair and arrest them, but back at the jail Mike takes all the blame to repay Billy for helping him.  In the morning Mike and his pals make up and they meet at the local diner to eat.  Billy sees them, and thinking that they are his friends now, he tries to join in.  Rather than being welcoming, however, Mike pushes Billy away and starts calling him names causing the other guys to whoop and laugh.  In the end, it is Billy who laughs best, however.  He goes to Harvard where he is popular and after graduating, he builds a software company, becomes a millionaire, and dates supermodels.  Mike, on the other hand, loses his football scholarship, ends up forty pounds overweight, and is fired from the carwash when suggestive pictures of him turn up. 

The other noteworthy story of the evening is what happens when Denise and Kenny get locked into the upstairs bathroom together.  It turns out that the two were best friends in grade school but haven’t spoken since.  Denise reminisces that Kenny used to get her a Valentine’s Day card every year, but when they started middle school he didn’t want to hang out with her anymore because she was in smart classes and wasn’t popular enough for him.  (It’s clear she has been completely out of the loop because all evening girls have treated him like a pariah.)  As the two talk, they realize that they still like each other.  They have sex, but then something goes wrong, and they start arguing again.  Even though they fight a lot, however, the two are still together the next morning, suggesting that like Preston and Amanda, Denise and Kenny are destined to be a couple, just not a peaceful one.

                I’m not getting into an in-depth discussion of Can’t Hardly Wait, because I intend to pull all the teen movies that I’ve showcased in this series together next time.  Suffice it to say I found it disappointing that even in the late 1990s, the film used the age-old formula: pretty girl must choose between good guy (Preston) and bad boy (Mike).  I was relieved, however, not to see the lurid sex scenes or female frontal nudity that were so prevalent in the teen films of the eighties. The movie has an overall rating of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, but critics tend to either love it or hate it.  There are a large number of little-known actors in the film who have gone on to enjoy successful careers like Seth Green, Erik Palladino, Donald Faison, and Jason Segel, and the soundtrack includes music from groups popular at the time like Smash Mouth, Eve 6 (which you might remember me including when I discussed the “Eve” episode from the X-Files), White Zombie, and Third Eye Blind.  Right now, you can watch Can’t Hardly Wait on Netflix, or rent it for $3 on streaming services like Apple TV, Amazon Prime, VUDU, and Fandango.  If you prefer to own rather than borrow, it is for sale at places like Best Buy, Wal-mart, and Amazon for around ten bucks. 

Next time I will revisit the movie Easy A, which stars Emma Stone and has a plot that references some of the teen movies talked in my blog over the last few months.  Until then, spend some quality time watching your own faves. I’m outie.