Review of Good Boys (2019) by Hnestlyonthesly — 07 Oct 2019

Sausage Party was one of the last films Camera 12 showed in San Jose before closing permanently. Jacob Tremblay’s last film was so bad that The Guardian dared people to go see it and some writers breathlessly marveled at other writers’ willingness to sit through the whole film. All these things considered, I had feared that Good Boys would be a toothless reproduction of a classic Apatow comedy, one that cleaved too closely to its source material and tried to squeeze the last few drops of humor out of tired scenes from a well-tread genre with slightly younger actors. But.

I am pretty frustrated by how much I liked this film. I’m surprised by how much of the film was an indictment of toxic masculinity and a companion piece to the other coming-of-age (“also called a Bildungsroman if you’re feeling fancy,” says Wife) movie from this summer, Booksmart. Good Boys proves that no one director has a monopoly on foul-mouthed boyhood antics and that comedies about children don’t need adult cameos to put butts in seats.

Both films are about growing apart. Both films focus on inflection points in relationships and try to find ways to navigate compassionate separation. Good Boys does so through the motif of hermit crabs outgrowing their shells. The Venn diagram of competence and adventurousness allows for the three leads to inhibit different permutations of the same qualities, present variations on a theme, which creates some wonderful moments of tension and complementary motivations. The gun scene is probably my favorite, unexpectedly perfect moment in the movie.

The movie parodies the self-seriousness of sixth grade, the rigid social structures and etiquette that regulates all interactions between children. Parody does not spare the toxic masculinity of frat culture–in a succinct and cutting scene that leaves no stone unturned, including the wonderfully repugnant jubilee of a young man’s, “Guys! She just dropped all charges!” Even scenes that reuse material from past coming-of-age films, the stuff in the trailer I was so worried about, find a novel way to spin jokes that feels fresh and clever.

Do not feel guilty about this unadulterated joy of a film, one whose quick and joke-packed script has a rolling laugh for nearly the entire film. In fact, when a joke fails, like the lone incest joke of the film that left Wife stunned, the silence of the audience is itself pretty humorous and shows how energetic and enterprising the script is, even if it doesn’t always get the tone of its humor right.