Plan B (2021)

Sure, a lot of this movie feels like Booksmart, which was the female-centric Superbad, but that’s a very superficial review, as both movies are about the relationship between two girls as they grow up in their last year of high school. And much how all of us are different people despite surface similarities, this film can stand on its own.

After co-writing and directing Language Lessons this year, Natalie Morales directed this film from a script by Prathi Srinivasan and Joshua Levy that is unafraid to be sentimental and wildly inappropriate, often at the same time.

Lupe and Sunny are high school girls planning out their first party and hoping Sunny’s first crush will attend. The hijinks that ensue — an unplanned sexual encounter leads to a stuck condom and a trip to get a Plan B prescription in case Sunny is pregnant — lead to a road trip movie that obviously will change both girls’ lives.

That road trip has to happen because their South Dakota town has a pharmacist (Jay Chandrasekhar from Super Troopers, always a welcome sight) who invokes that state’s conscience clause, which allows him to not have to give the young girls the contraceptive.

He’s just one of the great cameos in this movie, which also has Rachel Dratch in a really wonderful scene as a health teacher not ready for how smart her students are and how bad the used car as abstinence metaphor she’s been given to teach is.

The best teen movies leave us wishing that we could spend more time with their characters. I can honestly say that I’d love to see where else Lupe and Sunny’s lives will go. There were more uproarious and moments of genuine feeling in this than anything else I’ve seen in years. It’s not for everyone — it certainly does not shy away from frank sexual discussion nor actual male genitalia — but for those with an open mind and a love of ribald humor, it’s a winner.

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