Prom Dates

Grade: C

I heartily recommend the first 5-10 minutes of Prom Dates. There are quirky-fun sight gags, lines, and jokes that gave me the best laughs I’ve had in a while. I settled back with delight, looking forward to loving this movie. But all good things come to an end. The remaining 76-81 minutes have some of the most generic, formulaic material I’ve seen.

The bulk of the film takes place on the night before, the day of, and the night of prom. Every conceivable thing happens to our two main characters within the course of 24 hours. If their lives are always this eventful, that must be exhausting. Prom Dates will draw inevitable comparisons to Booksmart, which I also thought had an excellent opening, then got wacky and spun out of control. That, too, was about two lifelong best friends – high school seniors, who seem to experience everything in the world in the span of their graduation night.

Prom Dates is about best friends Jess and Hannah, who made a pact at age 13 that they would both attend senior prom, and have an epic one, whatever that means. Things seem all locked and loaded the night before their senior prom. They both have boyfriends. The night before, Jess makes a surprise appearance at her boyfriend Luca’s house, only to find him being awfully familiar with another girl in his backyard pool. Meanwhile, Hannah breaks up with Greg because she’s ready to come out as a lesbian, and Greg is…a bit much.

Luca and Greg are made with cookie cutters, and problematic. The moment we meet Luca (with him being so shallow, and wishy washy whenever Jess asks to meet his parents, or come over that night), his character arc is so obviously telegraphed. We are not supposed to like him, and we know exactly how this will play out. Greg spends most of the movie as an obnoxious cartoonish caricature, and then we are supposed to take him seriously when he has a late-act “real” moment, and then the resolution to his subplot happens too easily. He is a bit much.

In a desperate search for someone, anyone, to be their dates on the big night, they have a series of adventures that are unbelievable that all this could take place within a few hours. They have two arguments that, of course, had to happen so they can make up at the end. Both these fights feel manufactured as a forced way to insert drama, and follow the screenplay template. Many of the actors were unknown to me, but reminded me of other actors. Antonia Gentry as Jess is quite good, and has an America Ferrera vibe. JT Neal – as Hannah’s brother Jacob – is like a fusion of Wes Bentley and Adam Scott. I spent the body of Prom Dates patiently waiting for them to jump from one episode to the next. And I spent it not laughing much.

The ending is as routine as you can get. Hannah is able to get on the microphone and hijack the prom for a few minutes, which includes apologies, explanations, a coming out, and a musical number – all of which would only pertain to 3% of the people there. The remaining attendees would either be confused or wouldn’t care. Prom Dates has many talented performers, especially 24-year-old Julia Lester as Hannah. Her delivery, comedic timing, and physicality is great, and I hope a starring role like this in a popular Hulu Original movie will take her career to the next couple of gears. Otherwise, Prom Dates has a brilliant first few minutes, only to take a nosedive and become not funny enough, not true enough, and not touching enough. Not anything enough, really.

Grade: C