Go All The Way

A Quiet Place made a lot of noise at the box office over the weekend, but the makers of Blockers must also be pretty happy, since their small comedy grossed close to $21 million.

The film is about three teenage girls going to the prom who make a pact to have sex for the first time that night.  Their parents find out and try to stop them.  The trailer looked awful, so I don't think I'll be seeing it.

But one thing does interest me: which way will the movie go?  I've seen quite a few comedies set in high school where the main characters plan to have sex.  I haven't done any rigorous research, but I would guess in most of them they come up short.  There may be a chaste kiss in it for them, but generally not much more.  Most of them will have to wait until they get into a college comedy to get what they want.

At least there's a possibility, though.  If you watch Hollywood comedies in the 50s and early 60s, where there's no possibility of sex before marriage, and little enough after, you get what amounts to a lot of sexless sex farces.  And that's with adults.  Teens can't even think about it.  Since the opening up of censorship in the past few decades, you do get raunchy sex comedies where even teens make it.

And Blockers is rated R, which is a sign they might go further than usual.  On the other hand, the story is told from the point of view of the parents, it seems, not the kids.  Which way would that lead?

One thing is sure--both the parents and the kids will learn valuable lessons by the end of the movie.  But will that lesson be to hold off till you're ready (the kids' lesson, of course), or to let your kids lead their own lives?  Maybe they'll split the difference.  The mystery almost makes me want to see the film.