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★★★★☆
26 July 2018
A movie review of NEVER GOIN’ BACK. |
“There’s nothing in this world that prunes can’t fix,” Angela (Maia Mitchell)
From THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) to HAROLD AND KUMAR (2004) to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008), etc etc, there are a plethora of stoner comedy movies involving dudes. NEVER GOIN’ BACK is automatically refreshing by placing ladies centre stage. And it is hilarious. (Even the cops are wiseacres.) It’s what you want from the genre: Hijinks, adventure, stakes, scrapes and close calls.
A baking hot summer, teenage girlfriends Angela and Jessie (Camila Morrone) work a soulless job. Even with a kind boss, Roderick (Marcus M. Mauldin), twats surround them, from customers to a jealous colleague, Crystal (Atheena Frizzell). Our heroines’ lives feel claustrophobic. They are crammed into a tiny apartment with Jessie’s liability of a brother, Dustin (Joel Allen), who decides to become a low-level drug dealer even though he has zero street nous. (His two pals, Tony (Kendal Smith) and Ryan (Matthew Holcomb), are not much better.) They also live with the pervy Brandon (Kyle Mooney). And there is a crotchety, in-your-face neighbour. NEVER GOIN’ BACK has plenty of quickly observed social commentary. Comedy from the young guys comes from the discrepancy between their abilities and the belief in their abilities.
From THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) to HAROLD AND KUMAR (2004) to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008), etc etc, there are a plethora of stoner comedy movies involving dudes. NEVER GOIN’ BACK is automatically refreshing by placing ladies centre stage. And it is hilarious. (Even the cops are wiseacres.) It’s what you want from the genre: Hijinks, adventure, stakes, scrapes and close calls.
A baking hot summer, teenage girlfriends Angela and Jessie (Camila Morrone) work a soulless job. Even with a kind boss, Roderick (Marcus M. Mauldin), twats surround them, from customers to a jealous colleague, Crystal (Atheena Frizzell). Our heroines’ lives feel claustrophobic. They are crammed into a tiny apartment with Jessie’s liability of a brother, Dustin (Joel Allen), who decides to become a low-level drug dealer even though he has zero street nous. (His two pals, Tony (Kendal Smith) and Ryan (Matthew Holcomb), are not much better.) They also live with the pervy Brandon (Kyle Mooney). And there is a crotchety, in-your-face neighbour. NEVER GOIN’ BACK has plenty of quickly observed social commentary. Comedy from the young guys comes from the discrepancy between their abilities and the belief in their abilities.
We don’t know why Angela and Jessie dropped out of school, or where their parents are. The latter can’t be counted on, and shows how society can be overwhelmingly cruel/indifferent unless you have someone to rely on. None of the observations are dour, they mill around in the back of the mind below the surface of the japes. It makes them more palatable. There is a need for the uncompromising I, DANIEL BLAKEs of cinema, but entertainment helps the medicine go down more easily.
The duo has a plan to break the monotony of the daily grind: To go on a modest beach holiday for Jessie’s 17th birthday. It is still dear for them. It’s a subtle cry for people to be paid a living wage, which includes enough to be able to save, not merely to just about cover the bills. They are living hand to mouth. Jessie dreams of owning a washing machine. They‘ve even run out of toilet paper. Their rent money has been used for the trip, with the idea of working extra shifts at the diner. Of course the plan goes awry.
Instead of obediently going to their job, they detour via a party. Your conventional side is willing them to just go to their place of employment so they can go on holiday carefree, but the audience’s anarchist side is watching through their fingers as they wonder at the level of collateral damage and social carnage. It is SUPERBAD (2007) antics, but better.
Angela and Jessie are engagingly bolshy-as-f***, and fun to be in the company of. The two have mouths on them. You can see why they are popular. They are the life of the party. Angela and Jessie show how women (and men) must stand up for themselves and each other, otherwise the mean-spirited of this world will chew you up. Each lesson is never comfortably learned - at one point, they hit each other in the face with bricks to pretend they were in a car crash to excuse their tardiness.
NEVER GOIN’ BACK celebrates winging it in the era of making five year, 10 year, and life plans. Bombarded with building your own social media brands/personas, the film reminds the viewer to enjoy the now and not take yourself/life too seriously, and to not hit each other in the face with bricks.
