EVERYBODY Wants Some was released in UK cinemas yesterday (May 13). Quays News entertainment reporter Morgan Robinson went to watch it…

College comedies are some of the most accessible, likeable and fun movies out there. Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some is certainly no exception.

It begins by feeling like a run-of-the-mill, typical college comedy but around half-way through you realise you’re watching one of the best this genre has put out in quite some time.

Set in 1980 but not a film about the 80s, Everybody Wants Some focuses on the three days before college start and uses its 80s setting as a character in creating this incredibly fun time of a movie. It centres around Jake (Blake Jenner), a college freshman, meeting his new housemates and baseball teammates who immediately do what any group of guys do, go out, drink and party.

The film is basically a huge party from the word ‘go’. In terms of comedy films, I haven’t seen a more fun one than this for a long time. Maybe my enjoyment of it was aided by the fact that I’m the same age as some of these characters but I guess that just means it was more perfect for me right!?

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Students will have no problem liking this film; not only due to its fun nature and constant partying, but due to the depth within it. Themes surrounding individuality, living in the moment and new found love and friendship are all things that people of this age try to get a hold of and this identifiability just made me love the film more.

Speaking about Everybody Wants Some would not be complete though without mentioning its ‘spiritual predecessor’, Dazed and Confused. Director, Linklater, in 1993, created what many consider to be the greatest coming-of-age comedy of all time. I wouldn’t put Everybody Wants Some up at those heights but it wouldn’t be too far behind. Dazed and Confused was the first acting credit of one Matthew McConaughey and a very early role of Ben Affleck’s. If the stars that Linklater gave us with Dazed and Confused are anything to go by, Everybody Wants Some, its ‘spiritual sequel’, should be giving us some huge talent…and it has every right to.

Each cast member did a wonderful job in creating their own unique characters on this college baseball team and after seeing it, I can only hope that we start seeing these guys in a lot more.

Standouts from the cast for me were Glen Powell, who plays Finnegan, the nice-guy leader of the team (if there was a leader) whose charm and likeability really proved to heighten my enjoyment of the film and yas Willoughby, a philosophical, spiritual pothead, not dissimilar to Rory Cochrane’s ‘Slater’ in Dazed and Confused.

Willoughby is the character who brings the most depth in terms of story and message to the film and by the end you realise that he just wants to do what he loves (which is playing college baseball) and you can’t fault a guy for that.

What I seem to have failed to mention yet is just how funny this film actually is. The baseball team have excellent chemistry with each other and play off each other wonderfully with (more often than not) pretty immature humour but they are not cheap laughs by any means. The humour comes from the familiarity with these types of jokes in your real life and the realisation that you (or at least me) are not too dissimilar to these characters. If any of you have seen Wet Hot American Summer, or its Netflix show, WHAS: First Day of Camp, the humour is pretty similar to that.

The soundtrack is also phenomenal, filled with songs of the time. A highlight is five of the guys driving along singing Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang…all with their own sections.

If you want a fun film to watch this next week then you cannot go wrong with Everybody Wants Some. It painted a hugely entertaining, funny and charming picture of early college life and it left me by the end wanting it to continue for hours and hours just so I could spend more time with these delightful characters. Safe to say, I’ll be buying this one.

By Morgan Robinson
@ThePurpleDon_

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