greg mottola's SUPERBAD (2007)

it’s interesting that audiences generally demand very little from teen comedies where authenticity is concerned. while most of us haven’t ever been chased by a knife wielding maniac or (sadly) gotten caught up in a too-cute, happily ending romantic comedy, nearly everyone experienced the four years of social and hormonal torture that is high school, with the apparent exception of the people hired to write movies about it. Superbad, though, proves itself a bawdy, gorgeous exception to the rule, tackling the frustrations of late adolescence with an unexpected genuineness and an underlying emotional intelligence (quickly becoming producer Judd Apatow’s trademark) that twists its protagonists’ constant vulgarity into a sweet love song to male friendship. it certainly helps, of course, that Michael Cera and Jonah Hill turn in revelatory comedic performances as two friends in pursuit of booze, though their chemistry does become a sort of liability for the film as it progresses, due simply to the fact that a typically less-funny subplot concerning a third friend’s misadventures with a pair of wistful cops persists in drawing us away from Cera and Hill, and slows the movie down in the process. still, Superbad is a distinct treat, destined for cult status and content for the moment with being the funniest movie of the summer.