Monday Morning Movie Reviewer: Take Me Home Tonight Makes the 80’s Look More Fun Than They Really Were

Nostalgia. One word that could describe half the movies we see in theaters. Whether it’s obvious nostalgia like a period piece set in a time we might barely remember or a film set currently that tries to make us remember when we were younger (anything from Toy Story 3 to Superbad would qualify). But is there anything worse than nostalgia for a time period that sucked? Of course I’m talking about the 80’s, historically known as a cultural vacuum where music, movies, television, fashion, and politics (the Reagan administration is when income inequality and deregulation began to sky rocket) were universally panned. Perhaps the lowest of these life forms was the 80’s teen movie.

There were roughly 5,000 movies in which a cast of kids were going to a big party that night and the whole movie expected us to care that much if other people were having a good time. The stakes were low, the dramatic tension was less, the laughs were (usually) even less than that, and now Take Me Home Tonight successfully recreates those films with a little bit more sleekness. It doesn’t feel exactly accurate to the time period but as someone who hates that time period I’ll settle for a 2011 movie that feels like a 1995 movie trying to pass for a 1980’s movie.

What Works: Teresa Palmer (as the requisite “unattainable” girl the hero spends the entire movie trying to get with) is like the world’s most likable Barbie doll. She’s just playful and subtly smart enough to make you think Topher Grace’s nerd hero COULD actually score with her. Also, Topher Grace’s character is in the middle of a quarter-life crisis where he doesn’t know what to do post-college so he basically lies in limbo trying to pick a fate because he doesn’t want to pick the wrong one. I hate to admit it, but I related to this far more than I do almost any of the current teen movies where the heroes just seem to have problems that feel, holy shit, more like the same problems an 80’s teen movie hero would have.

What Doesn’t: Dan Fogelman as the requisite fat, charmless sidekick didn’t make me laugh one time, but he did make me wish this horrible comedian (who has equally sucked donkey balls in Good Luck Chuck, Balls of Fury, and any movie I’ve seen him in) would have an actual cocaine overdose like his character does in the movie. I’m not kidding, he’s become an actor that let’s me know a movie isn’t really trying because they cast him in it. And that’s the bigger problem: Take Me Home Tonight is trying to recreate a type of movie that is disposable, dated even if you don’t consider the period, and just not really worth paying homage to.

What I Would Have Done Different: Probably given more screen time to the one (admittedly stereotypical and stale) plot that actually works: Topher Grace trying to get with his dream babe, and also devote a little more time to his character specifically going through this quarter-life crisis instead of making it an ensemble film—which this film is—with an ensemble you don’t really care about. It’s strange to have an ensemble film about a bunch of kids going to a party…but then have only Topher want something out of that party.