June: Some Special Booksmart pals taking their Long Shot to avoid having an Obvious Child

Dear Hannah,

Happiest of Junes!! This spring has been...a lot, for me personally, and I can’t say enough how thrilled I am to be in the season of patio margaritas and summer blockbusters. Sadly, we have no Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again this summer to so specifically set our hearts alight, but looking forward we have a PLETHORA of content to get into so let’s get started!

And personally I’m gonna get started with the one I was Most Reluctant To Like But Ended Up Enjoying Anyways...Long Shot!

So I have what one might deem a...grudge against Seth Rogen. I’ve had a myriad of bad reactions to his ~filmography~, taking particular issue with the way he’s frequently positioned as the “not conventionally handsome or terribly motivated but FUNNY!!!”* guy that a gorgeous, uptight woman just needs to RELAX around so she can learn to LIVE A LITTLE and, of course, make out with Seth Rogen. You can see how with this particular ax to grind, the premise of Long Shot seemed specifically designed to torment me. Charlize Theron as a polished, high-powered politician and...this goofy dude who wears his windbreaker zipped all the way up and knows less about political speechwriting than I do from watching >6 ½ episodes of The West Wing?

(I identified SO DEEPLY with June Diane Raphael’s character in this movie and I’m gonna need everyone to go ahead and CAST JUNE DIANE RAPHAEL MORE)

And yet…? I was actually kind of charmed! It certainly helped that Seth Rogen’s character was much more earnest here than the usual snarky, self-deprecating-but-in-a-self-assured-Seth Rogen Character(™)-way. Fred was sweet and earnest and a bit worried and funny but not in a “if you don’t think I’m funny you’re just UPTIGHT and don’t get me!!” was which is the Seth Rogen version of ~funny~ that I’m used to. [It has literally kept me up at night thinking about how much Seth Rogen annoys me. OKAY I’LL BE DONE I’LL TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE NOW.]

Although I could have done without the “when we were teenagers I kissed her and it was SO EMBARRASSING for *ME*” flashback, I thought the fact that they knew each other as kids and were just now reconnecting as adults brought an interesting dynamic into the movie. Fred openly enthuses over how much he admired Charlotte’s intense policy plans and integrity when she was running for high school student government. It’s a sweet sentiment, but an idealization that Fred needs to confront as an adult. Not only is Charlotte’s job more complicated as an adult, so is she. While the first couple of conflicts in the movie are driven by his frustration with her political compromises, as he gets to know her better and understand how those compromises wear on her he becomes a better friend and partner. There’s a scene about two-thirds of the way through during which she’s very frustrated and sad about her current inability to make the kind of difference she wants to and he just sits on the floor with her and listens and I honestly thought, “holy shit, I don’t know if I’ve seen this in a movie...ever?”

YOU WILL NOT GET ME EMOTIONAL OVER M’F’ING LONG SHOT. IT WON’T HAPPEN. FUCKING NO. [ok I did get a little emotional when they were kissing outside the club and there were fireworks. go away.]

Also this movie obviously gets 10 extra excellence points for its two brief shots of Chris Evans’ face.

Now, when we talked about our topics for this month, I talked you into this next one through a truly convoluted chain of events in my head that went something like this:

Long Shot -> Seth Rogen -> ugh sEtH rOgEn -> Knocked Up -> Obvious Child

I have never actually finished the movie Knocked Up because a half hour in my friend and I were so upset that she suggested we quit and just watch Obvious Child and 10/10 one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. [For those interested in gnashing your teeth at Hollywood’s intensely gendered expectations, let me just direct you to the Knocked Up wikipedia page, section ‘Reception,’ subsection ‘Accusations of sexism.’]

In this delightful, heartfelt movie directed by Gillian Robespierre, Jenny Slate plays a standup comic recently dumped and informed that the bookstore she works at is going to be closing. Things are Not Going Great, and although a fun night with a nice stranger cheers her up a bit, the ensuing pregnancy does not.

This movie was honestly kind of a headrush for me the first time I saw it, I think the summer of 2016? [WHEW what a different time it was!] I was still fairly new to being pro-choice, and was tentatively at a “welllll I guess I think it should be legal buttttt people probably shouldn’t and definitely not cAsUaLlY!!” kind of place. I was still getting used to thinking expansively and generously about the many valid reasons a person might want/need an abortion, and this movie definitely nudged me there sooner.

Although the movie’s timeline revolves around the pregnancy and abortion, the small amounts of drama don’t actually come from the abortion itself. Jenny Slate’s character, Donna, pretty swiftly and decisively makes the call to have an abortion, and in fact learns about it so early that she has to wait a couple weeks before she’s far along enough to even have it. [*clears throat loudly in the direction of the ‘heartbeat bills’*] Instead, the story revolves around smaller decisions, like how to stop fighting with her mom or whether to tell Max that she’s “having your abortion.” It would be one thing if he were a jerk or if she simply wasn’t interested in seeing him again...but on their first date he warms up her butter for her!! He’s a real sweetheart who enjoys bantering with her sometimes startling sense of humor and the movie does a great job of putting us directly into her point of view in all its awkward glory.

Also it’s a cool 90 minutes and I cannot state enough how much I need that from MORE MOVIES.

Before moving on, I would just like to remind you of the magic of Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, parts one, two, and three, videos that have gotten me through many a rough day, along with this video of Jenny Slate singing Landslide as Marcel (the singing starts at 1:40). She also has a book coming out in November that I’m very excited about.

And like...not to shoehorn in Chris Evans AGAIN...but remember when they dated? Honestly an enormous part of my crush on him developed when they got together because I was like “OH OKAY HE HAS GOOD TASTE DAMMIT!” and if you can read this description she gave of him post-breakup without needing to sob into a handkerchief I don’t even know what to do with you:

Speaking on behalf of her time spent With Evans, Jenny Slate told Vulture,

“What’s the same about us is not just that we’re from Massachusetts, which was such a delight, but Chris is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, to the point where sometimes I would look at him and it would kind of break my heart. He’s really vulnerable, and he’s really straightforward. He’s like primary colors. He has beautiful, big, strong emotions, and he’s really sure of them. It’s just wonderful to be around. His heart is probably golden-colored, if you could paint it.”

OKAY OKAY I’LL MOVE ON FROM CHRIS EVANS. [within the space of this letter, not in my life whatsoever.]

Up next...Special!

Sadly, there aren’t many gifs yet for this series created by and starring Ryan O’Connell, but we do have the gift of excellent promotional images like this one!

A fictionalized account of events from his life, the show is about a young gay man with mild cerebral palsy. It largely revolves around his efforts to become more independent from his mom, via dating, moving out, and a writing internship at a personal-essay-cannon-fodder web publication (*coughThoughtCatalogcough*). On his first day at EggWoke (a name that still makes me cackle), a misunderstanding (with the help of some ableism) leads his coworkers to believe his disability was caused by a recent car accident. The misunderstanding blossoms into a full-blown, viral-personal-essay sized lie that becomes trickier and trickier to manage as he grows closer to his new friends and crushes.

So a of all, like my admiration for Obvious Child’s conciseness, this show is eight 15 minute episodes, which is a structure I am absolutely a fan of. It’s very vignette-y anyways, and the short episodes gave those vignettes nice containers where they might have gotten a little too unfocused in longer episodes.

There’s a lot that the show is trying to balance--it’s sweet but with a very adult sense of humor; it’s fully committed to Ryan’s self-discovery and explorations but focuses almost as much about his mom learning how to live for herself. It pulls off a lot very well, but it did feel a tad underdeveloped in spots. I think part of that is that Ryan as a character is learning how to navigate The Many Fun Tensions of Adulthood, like finding the balance between not being too hard on himself while also not letting himself off the hook too easily when it comes to consideration for his mom and friends. That’s a really difficult thing not only to manage yourself, but to fit into 2 hours worth of streaming television. I hope O’Connell keeps getting opportunities to make TV because I did like this show, but I also hope that when Netflix wants representation points it does a better job of providing its creators with the budgets and development guidance needed to really make the show shine.

Speaking of shine...BOOKSMART.

OKAY SO. I saved this one for last partly because I was the most excited about it and ALSO because wow is it about to get REAL IN HERE and I wanted to raise the bar for entry just a TAD above the casual skimmer. This movie happened to hit me at a time when I’ve been doing a lot of ~reflecting~ about my time in high school, who I was, who I thought I was, who the people around me were, who I thought they were.

As with just about every movie high school, the school size seemed vague, but judging from the graduation scene I’d guess a graduating class of around 100 or fewer, which in the spectra of public high schools is pretty small, unless you compare it to my own graduating class of around 40. And I’m sure this will come as a deep shock to all of you, but I did not party in high school. Not only did I not party, I was so clueless about partying that it took me until about 4 years after graduating to even think to ask my cooler siblings “wait...where did people party in high school?” Like I think I knew theoretically that it was happening at some theoretical time but I don’t think any given Friday night on which I was watching My Fair Lady and eating Phish Food ice cream with my best friend I would ever have stopped to think, “huh I wonder if there’s a party happening at this very moment.”

One of the things that hit me hardest about the movie was watching Amy and Molly realize that they barely knew or saw some of these people that they’d spent all these years with. While I saw myself in both characters, I would characterize my attitude in high school as very Molly-ish, though with some of her aggressiveness shifted into standoffishness. School was what I was good at, what I felt confident about, and even though there’s a lot more I know now about the many systems and privileges that contributed to me being a “good student,” at the time there was nothing stopping my from channelling my insecurity about not connecting well with my peers into an equation where if I worked the hardest and knew the most...at least I’d be the ~smartest~! And like Molly in particular, this kept me from really understanding many of my classmates. That graduation scene gave me more feelings than my own graduation as I wondered what that moment might have been like for me if I had been a bit more open.

THAT BEING SAID, I DID TOTALLY HAVE FRIENDS YOU GUYS.

Best friends I know about! I was fortunate enough to have more than one, and HOO BOY DID THIS MOVIE GIVE ME MY HIGH SCHOOL BEST FRIENDS FEELS. Molly and Amy’s friendship felt so REAL and EARNEST, from the code words and goofy dancing to the coordinating outfits and INCREDIBLE pep talks they gave each other. The movie was so clear--because the characters were--about how delighted they were by each other and how proud each of them was of the other person.

Slight spoilers from here until the gif of Billie Lourd being glorious.

When the revelation came that Molly had been covering her crush on Nick by acting disgusted with him, I was at first slouching very deep into my seat to avoid the pointed looks of two of my friends who fully craned their entire head and shoulders to stare at me, and then that personal embarrassment turned quickly to tenderness when Amy told Molly that “Nick would be lucky to be a footnote in your story.” There’s not much I’d go back to high school for, and I love the ways my relationships with my high school best friends have evolved and matured, but there’s something special about the trust and goofiness and sincerity of teenage bestfriendships, when you can soothe a rocky day by sitting on the gym floor during lunch with your person listening to your iPods.

It seems like every movie about friendship has to have a big fight in the third act, but this one felt particularly moving and grounded. The movie did a great job throughout the beginning hinting at the places of tension in their relationship, and even the fight showed how vulnerable they were with each other. I’m intrigued and a little bothered by the choice to cut their voices from the end of the fight, showing only their lips moving as the camera circles them, but I also can’t stop thinking about it aesthetically. Though the ‘needs to know everything’ part of me feels deeply frustrated by not hearing the end of the fight, it also felt like another way of both showcasing and protecting the intimacy between the two characters. We don’t need to know what they said because we could see on their faces how much it was hurting both of them. I’m probably seeing the movie again this weekend, so I might feel differently on a second viewing, but I appreciated how the fight felt more important than just an excuse for the characters to be apart for about 15 minutes for ~plot reasons~.

Billie! Lourd!! I hope Billie Lourd had THE BEST time working on this movie and I think a thousand sonnets should be written about her comedic timing.

On that note, happy summer again my pal, and know that I feel these words truly:

Kelsey

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Dear Kelsey,

I really enjoyed our movie-heavy month for June’s newsletter! I typically prefer TV shows over movies, but the movies were a nice change of pace in an overwhelming month and we watched some GREATS.

I don’t have a lot to say about Special, honestly. It's pretty close to perfect. Also, I think Ryan O’Connell is a delightful person and I’d like to buy him brunch.

Ryan struggles with three key themes over the course of the first season: 1) “coming out” about his disability after lying about it, 2) pursuing autonomy from his very kind and deeply codependent mother, who struggles to invest in her own life outside of her relationship with Ryan and 3) looking for a boyfriend, eventually deciding to pay a sex worker to be his very first sexual encounter (the truly groundbreaking moment of this show IMO, written and filmed brilliantly). It is so tender and so funny. I cannot say enough good things about it. Please watch it so that Ryan gets to make more good things for us to watch and so Netflix hires more people with disabilities!!!

This show also has some top notch pauses, like this one:

The tone of the show is like a drier version of Shrill, which is extremely my shit.

Speaking of Shrill and big women with bigger personalities! Let’s talk BOOKSMART!

I AM OBSESSED. I knew it was love when this movie opened with the audio from a motivational tape Molly is listening to while she gets ready for school. (I was mostly the Amy of my high school duo, but this is 100% something I would have done at 18.) It (somewhat miraculously) only got better from there. Like Special, this movie also has a groundbreaking sex scene of its own: teenage lesbian Amy (played by Kaitlyn Dever) having her first sexual experience with a girl from school, which ends with an incredible plot twist that I will not spoil for you!

This movie is what I imagine Sixteen Candles meant to its teen audience in the 1980s—relatable and aspirational at the same time, a heartwarming joy ride ending with the payoff the protagonists (and all of us) deserve. However, John Hughes and Olivia Wilde could not be more different in their relationship to the male gaze throughout each movie.
Hughes’ Samantha is a glamorized version of a teen girl, and it’s his gaze that burns its way through the movie, not the audience. To Wilde, men are mostly an afterthought that only serve to accentuate the personal development and friendship arc between Molly and Amy through the movie. Theirs is the relationship that has an exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution. It’s the feminist coming of age story we (MAINLY ME) have all been waiting for.

I didn’t share your same connection to the premise of the movie itself, but I have a few theories why. I, too, remained entirely oblivious to any partying in high school and even college (I shit you not, I was a junior in college before it even occurred to me that my acquaintances were probably having sex), but I was also homeschooled, which I think is a valid excuse. I was also very reserved and full of romantic idealism—neither of which fit any of the characters in this movie.

The acting is incredible (Lisa Kudrow, Billie Lourd (BILLIE LOURD, A QUEEN IN HER OWN RIGHT), Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, and Jessica Williams all find their way into roles in this movie, not to mention our incredibly talented leads Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein). Olivia Wilde truly outdid herself with the directing. It’s even executive produced by Will Ferrell! (BUT PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME A COMEDY STARRING BILLIE LOURD!)

This month is just turning into a series of plugs for each of our topics, but both Special and Booksmart were considered “failures” by streaming/box office standards and that is a GD SHAME. These are wrongs that must be righted.

On to a movie that actually did pretty well at the box office—Long Shot. This is the one that you and I have had the most disagreement over, due to your now-infamous grudge against Seth Rogen. To be fair, I think much of this criticism is warranted. I would not consider myself a diehard fan of Seth Rogen. My first time watching Seth Rogen on screen was when he cameoed briefly as a love interest for Mindy Lahiri on The Mindy Project, which has permanently skewed my opinion of him for the better. After that, I have only seen him in Freaks and Geeks, 40 Year Old Virgin, Anchorman 2, and Long Shot! I have never seen Knocked Up, and at this point I don’t plan to.

I can’t figure out why I like Seth Rogen. Maybe it’s the oddly charismatic combination of big-heartedness and fiery intensity that exists beneath all the jokes. You pointed out that he played a more earnest character in this movie than he usually does, and it’s that earnestness that I find so appealing. Either way, I find him very easy to like, and Long Shot plays heavily on this.

Long Shot is basically the embodiment of the question, “What if everything we know about dating ‘out of our league’ is a lie?” It also touches on some feminist questions of our time, like how to date a man when you make more money than he does or you’re more ambitious or successful in your work than he is or how to make yourself less threatening so men who aren’t as ambitious or successful will date you anyway.

(When I was writing this I thought to myself, “Why did they make the *famous woman* settle for the average guy? What if they made a famous guy settle for an average girl?” But then I realized that’s basically the plot of Hairspray.)

This movie sounds terrible I know, but I found the way they pull it off heartwarming. Rogen plays a journalist whose childhood babysitter is running for president in the 2020 election (played by gorgeous queen Charlize Theron), and she ends up asking him to work as one of her speechwriters through the election. They end up falling in love, and he does genuinely bring a lot of goodness into her life: In a world full of demands for her to be polished, put-together, and prioritize power over values, he offers her spontaneity, a soft place to land, and a fierce advocate for her convictions. The thing that I found most moving about this movie is that the plot caters so little to Rogen’s male fragility—if he has any insecurity about being “obscured” by the fame and success of Theron, we never notice. The focal point for him is his love and admiration for her, and whether his desire to join her is enough to dial back his unpolished public persona.

I found the end a bit unconvincing and too heavy on the sugary resolution (I would have been okay with less of a happy-clappy ending), but the premise was really enjoyable and a more thoughtful attempt at a romcom than we’ve seen from the Rogen-brand humor in years past. Seth Rogen’s evolution is fascinating to me and I’m intrigued to see where his work goes from here.

Also, hire June Diane Raphael for literally everything please. She deserves so much more money and screen time. #JusticeforJune

Okay, Obvious Child—the so-called antidote to Knocked Up. I had never seen this movie or even heard of it before watching it for this newsletter per Kelsey’s recommendation, and I did ~NOT~ know what I was in for. I walked into this movie a vulnerable little baby exposed to the elements, unprepared for the incremental weather of my soul!

I said this on Twitter a few days ago, but Max reminds me so much of Logan that it physically hurt me to watch this scene where he warms up the butter for Donna—the moment we all realize he is something special and she should hold on and never let go. I love Logan so much that all feelings about Max are now permanently and unfairly skewed in his favor. To be super frank though, I’m not ~entirely~ sure I loved Donna? Watching this movie for the first time in a post-Midge Maisel era kind of ruined her charm for me. However, none of this alters my LOVE FOR JENNY SLATE and her excellence completely outside of Donna. But I am happy for Donna because Max was going to heal something deep inside of her, and we didn’t need to see it happening in front of our eyes to know it will happen in the future.

TOO. PURE. IT HURTS.
Everything we watched this month made me feel like a softer, kinder person for having seen it. Kelsey (and readers), may you someday have someone in your life who will laugh as you run around at a sleepover with your shirt over your face and they shake their head, thinking about how much they like you and how glad they are to know you.

Hannah