The "plan B," so to speak, to this teenage (or twenty-somethings playing teenagers, rather) buddy-party flick would be a road trip movie, including a bit more partying. We've seen it before: "Superbad" (2007) and "Booksmart" (2019) meets, say, a less depressing "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" (2020), or even the stoners-instead-of-teenagers "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004), except instead of the buddies hitting the road in search of a laxative in the shape of tiny fast-food burgers, they're after the morning-after pill. The joke being, I guess, that the obvious answer of a pharmacy was staring them in the face all along. Kids, huh, making the simplest tasks into life-affirming adventures. To their credit, these ones do try a pharmacy first, but are unwilling to discuss sex with their parents so as to get an obstinate clerk--I mean pharmacist--to fork over the drug. Or, maybe try another pharmacy.... But, I suppose this is a commentary on particularly American sexual hangups and how contraception gets tied up in the country with abortion, Planned Parenthood and evangelical-political moralizing.
Graciously, "Plan B" isn't as obtuse as it could've been in regards to its obvious socio-political commentary, although there are a few politically-correct or straw-man racial jokes that land with a thud. A fellow student, for instance, who remarks with surprise that one of the girls' homes doesn't smell like curry. Later, there's the tired trope of rapacious men cornering them, and they also employ food-based racism, as well as misogyny. During one of the parties, too, one of the girls quips about how something must be how white privilege feels. Fortunately, most of the comedy is better than that. There's even some relatively-graphic humor involving what I assume was a prosthetic penis. Good, because these type of movies are insufferable if they're rated anything less than the MPAA's R, or the TV-slash-streaming-on-Hulu equivalent of TV-MA.
Compared to that other girl-buddy flick "Booksmart," "Plan B" isn't quite as well filmed. None of the drug-induced fantasy sequences. The musical cues and underwater cinematography in the party scenes regarding the lesbian friend in that one is more impressive filmmaking than anything seen here. A similar plotline is included here, too, but it doesn't quite fit as well into the general theme of sexual repression as I assume it was intended to. It's derivative otherwise, as well. On the other hand, at least the kids in this one don't appear to be condescending rich brats as in "Booksmart." So, there's that, and it's passably amusing.
Also, there's a good joke from Andy the drug dealer regarding his also supposedly being 17, but his skin being affected by his lack of water. Of course, the actor being really closer to 30 than 17.
Graciously, "Plan B" isn't as obtuse as it could've been in regards to its obvious socio-political commentary, although there are a few politically-correct or straw-man racial jokes that land with a thud. A fellow student, for instance, who remarks with surprise that one of the girls' homes doesn't smell like curry. Later, there's the tired trope of rapacious men cornering them, and they also employ food-based racism, as well as misogyny. During one of the parties, too, one of the girls quips about how something must be how white privilege feels. Fortunately, most of the comedy is better than that. There's even some relatively-graphic humor involving what I assume was a prosthetic penis. Good, because these type of movies are insufferable if they're rated anything less than the MPAA's R, or the TV-slash-streaming-on-Hulu equivalent of TV-MA.
Compared to that other girl-buddy flick "Booksmart," "Plan B" isn't quite as well filmed. None of the drug-induced fantasy sequences. The musical cues and underwater cinematography in the party scenes regarding the lesbian friend in that one is more impressive filmmaking than anything seen here. A similar plotline is included here, too, but it doesn't quite fit as well into the general theme of sexual repression as I assume it was intended to. It's derivative otherwise, as well. On the other hand, at least the kids in this one don't appear to be condescending rich brats as in "Booksmart." So, there's that, and it's passably amusing.
Also, there's a good joke from Andy the drug dealer regarding his also supposedly being 17, but his skin being affected by his lack of water. Of course, the actor being really closer to 30 than 17.