Reviewed 2023-04-28

Very tonally confused film. Quite enjoyable, but some of the drama went unexplored and the ending resolution would have made more sense if they had spent more time, narrative time or writing time, ironing them out.

I really enjoyed the big confrontation sequence. The setup is pretty great, it's reminiscent of the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap, one of my favorite films I watched as a kid. Cal goes back to their house to try to remind Emily of their first date; Robbie is helping Cal present her a mini golf set. Hannah is revealed to be their daughter, who has brought Jacob along to introduce him to her parents. Bernie is absolutely livid at Cal, thinking he was having a sexual relationship with Molly, his 17 year old daughter, which was her fault for taking nude pictures of herself and addressing them to Cal, so she's in hot pursuit of her father, much to the confusion and chagrin of her mother. David Lindhagen, the one who has been referenced as the one having an affair with Emily the whole time, then shows up, in the flesh.

The dramatic irony is extremely strong and disjointed.  Jacob doesn't know Cal is Hannah's father. Cal doesn't know Jacob is in love with his daughter and that's why he made the effort to change his ways. Hannah doesn't know Cal and Jacob know each other and that her boyfriend has been helping her father become a womanizer and in that they became close yet grudging friends. Bernie doesn't know Molly took those pictures of herself and addressed them to Cal without his knowledge or consent in a stupid, juvenile attempt to get with him. Cal doesn't know Molly did this and thus doesn't know why Bernie is trying to strangle him. All the others are completely oblivious to this entire subplot. Robbie has a crush on her, but she finds it embarrassing and annoying. IIRC, the only other one who knows of this is Cal, and the only ones who know about Lindhagen are Cal, Emily, and Jacob. Cal hates Lindhagen obviously. So this goes about as well as you'd expect. It's insanely entertaining and cathartic to watch.

I take issue with the ending. Cal's interruption of Robbie's speech is fine, and a lot of what he says, albeit embarrassing and a bit difficult to watch, make sense and set up the ending fairly well. But it happened too fast. I don't think Cal would have given Hannah and Jacob his blessing so quickly. I don't think Emily would have forgiven Cal for his actions so quickly. Obviously the teacher isn't happy but I don't think she walks that back which is good. There's just overall a lot of forgiving and forgetting that happened too quickly in an out of character manner.

The 17 year old girl giving the 13 year old her nudes to "get him through school" is fucking weird. Besides being disgusting, it's illegal; she's a minor who created pornographic images of herself and gave them to another minor. Creation of child pornography and distribution of child pornography to a child. These are serious charges that aren't without consequences. The film is blissfully unaware of how messed up this is because it got caught up in the payoffs it wanted. It just reads as a classic Hollywood thinking sexualizing children or exposing them to adult content is ok. Was this scene not controversial when it came out? He's going to have some really twisted and unrealistic expectations of what he deserves from her in a couple years. If she continues to interact with him after turning 18 and she doesn't shut down any sexual advances made from him, this could really be considered grooming. Not only that, but her actions seem to indicate a promise that the two of them will be together several years down the line. What if she thinks twice? What if it doesn't work out? The only reason she made this hint at a promise was because she thought he'd look more like his father in the future. "I had a crush on your dad, here are the nudes I took for him, hopefully once you're of age we can have a sexual and romantic relationship." Reverse genders and I feel like they wouldn't have done it. Hello writers? Are you awake? This should have been immediately nixed on the second draft. If it was an on-set decision it should have been edited out or the director, script supervisor, SOMEONE should have shot it down.

Besides those hiccups I reckon it's pretty solid. Not sure how to rank it in light of these flaws.