|
Take Me Home Tonight
| Released |
13 May 2011 |
| Director |
Michael Dowse |
Starring
|
Topher Grace, Teresa Palmer, Anna Faris, Dan Fogler, Chris Pratt, Michael Connell Biehn, Michael Ian Black, Michelle Trachtenberg, Demetri Martin |
Writer(s)
|
Michael Dowse, Jackie Filgo,
Jeff Filgo |
Producer(s)
|
Gordon Kaywin, Topher Grace, Dany Wolf |
| Origin |
United States, Germany |
| Running Time |
98 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy, drama |
| Rating |
16 |
|
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Aggressively unfunny.
Flashback movies are hard to pull off at the best of times. It's difficult to try to recapture an era-a time, a place, a heaving climate of nostalgia-on celluloid, and even harder when John Hughes's 1980s cult classics The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles are your yardstick. While Canadian director Michael Dowse's retro flick Take Me Home Tonight takes an admirable stab at the eighties' genre, complete with fluoro legwarmers and flock of seagulls haircuts, it ultimately fails to be more than unmemorable quasi-amiable romcom.
It's 1988 and Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) is a brilliant MIT graduate who confounds his family and friends by shunning high-flying career opportunities to work in his local video store. His aimlessness and lack of ambition comes to a head when his high-school crush Tori Frederking (Teresa Palmer) walks into Suncoast Video one day and Matt pretends to be a 'Goldman Sachs man' in order to woo her. After Matt agrees to meet Tori later on that night at Kyle Masterson's (Chris Pratt) reunion party, he frantically ropes in his twin sister Wendy (Anna Faris) and best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) to help him maintain his charade as a banking yuppie. In doing so the trio embark on a night that will change their lives forever.
The standard eighties movie formula of pining love, crazy sidekick and a great soundtrack is obviously evident in Take Me Home Tonight but whatever similarities it shares with Hughes's popular films ends there. Whilst sporadically amusing (the comedy is of the raunchy, slapstick variety-with Demetri Martin making an appearance as a quadriplegic prick) Take Me Home Tonight fails to simultaneously marry the funny with the sensitive-something that is entirely necessary in a retro romcom. While Grace is as ever engaging, his acting chops are never really tested while some of the dialogue can at best be described as ridiculous. Fogler, as Grace's partner in crime, is similarly wasted as the outrageous coke snorting Barry who yells and fistpumps his way through the party like a crazy cherubic child. While Faris is likeable enough, she has been reduced to a tertiary role as the whimpering female who is faced with the ultimate dilemma-go to Grad school or marry her rich vapid boyfriend? Surely a question that will have feminists on the edge of their seats. Newcomer, Australian actress Teresa Palmer on the other hand shines-not least in her gold lame jumpsuit-in her role as Tori, the beautiful former prom queen. Touchingly charming amidst all the stupidity around her, Palmer carries the film much of the way on her slender shoulders but alas, it is not nearly enough. Take Me Out Tonight is too full of errors and silliness to make it more than just a passably good film.
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Louisa McElwee |
