Write about what you know, they say.
Writer-director Richard Linklater, 55, knows about growing up in the 1980s and the forces shaping the male psyche, which he recently explored in his epic ode “Boyhood.”
His appealing new film “Everybody Wants Some!!” is also a portrait of boys being boys – living for today and partying like there’s no tomorrow – and has been called a spiritual sequel to “Dazed and Confused.”
But “Everybody Wants Some!!,” named after a Van Halen song, actually picks up where “Boyhood” left off: in college. And the forces shaping its characters are pitchers of Schlitz, sex and playing baseball.
Linklater, who played ball in school, sets the action among college teammates who take the game more seriously than life or grades.
The story, a series of interactions among teammates and intersections with other campus cliques, takes place on the weekend before the start of the fall semester.
They are roguish and likable male archetypes living off campus, individually distinctive but collectively representative of their gender.
But Linklater scratches the surface of what could be just a group of drunken frat boys to show us another chapter in the evolution in personal, cultural and male identity.
They are not rebelling against anything because they are golden. So they tussle among them selves for hierarchical supremacy.
They exude the false confidence of youth that comes from being told they are they best at one thing and have no reason to doubt it until they are in the company of others told the same.
Over a weekend they intersect with parallel subcultures – theater kids, punks, cowboys – in search of beer and women. And while politically incorrect they are rarely dismissive and never confrontational.
When together all they talk about is women. But at a party with women, all they talk about is baseball.
Linklater resurrects the signifiers of dorm life of the 1980s: milk crates full of LPs, turntables and tube amplifiers, polyester shirts in paisley patterns, Farrah posters, bongs and a soundtrack of rap, pop, punk, country, rock and disco.
In a delightful early scene that sets the tone of what will follow, five of them cruise the campus singing “Rapper’s Delight” with the harmless posturing of wannabes. That said the film is apolitical not very racially diverse nor gender sensitive.
The story is told from the perspective of a character played by Blake Jenner, thankfully not related to Caitlyn, nee Bruce, nor by extension to the Kardashian clan, but the resemblance of this square-jawed Peter Pan with a feathered shag to the Olympic athlete is striking.
“Dazed” “Boyhood” and “Everybody” form a trilogy of sorts, that might be compared to Apted’s “Seven Up” series, or Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom books. Linklater is charting a larger social phenomenon personally observed, which makes “Everybody” more than just joyful escapism.
The characters are the peak of their boyhood tipping into manhood. They have yet to experience bad grades, failed marriages or dead-end jobs. The last scene shows Jenner sleeping in class with a smile on his face, blissfully unaware of what lies ahead. But we know what they don’t.
And this gives the simple charms of “Everybody Wants Some” a bittersweet tang.
***1/2 Three and one half stars
With Blake Jenner, Justin Street, J. Quinton Johnson, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin Wyatt Russell, Zoey Deutsch. Produced by Richard Linklater, Megan Ellison, Ginger Sledge. Written and directed by Richard Linklater. Rated R; drug and alcohol use, sex, nudity, language. Approximate running time: 117 minutes.
Tags: Blake Jenner, Everybody Wants Some, Linklater, Van halen Posted by