The recently released Plan B is a comedy that is vulgar, crude, and pretty damn funny.
The plot centers around two high school friends at a town in South Dakota. Why South Dakota? Why not?
Kuhoo Verma plays Sunny, a 17-year-old Indian-American and Victoria Moroles is her friend, Lupe. They seem to be the generic non-white students at the school populated by your typical WASP teens in other comedies. When Sunny’s mother goes out of town to a real estate agent seminar, Lupe announces to the whole school that Sunny will have a party at her house. Sunny likes Hunter, played by Michael Provost, as your typical WASP hunk, i.e. Jake Ryan, who she hopes to hook up with but instead finds herself having sex with Kyle (Mason Cook), a ultra-religious Christian student, in the bathroom.
The sex scene is both funny and awkward and might just be a little too real for some viewers who lost their virginity with the same uncomfortableness. The next morning, Sunny realizes that the condom Kyle used is still inside her when she has to use the bathroom for other more intended purposes.
Freaking out, her and Lupe go to the nearby pharmacy for the Plan B pill but are turned away by the pharmacist, Jay Chandrasekhar of Broken Lizard and Super Troopers fame, who cites his own religious and ethical reasons. So now, they have to take a trip to Planned Parenthood in Rapid City, S.D.
If you’ve seen any other movie like this (Eurotrip, Road Trip, the Harold and Kumar trilogy), you’d know that it’s not going to be that easy as they take the minivan belonging to Sunny’s mother and set off for 24 hours of lunacy and wild antics.
They get lost and run into many colorful characters along the way. Not to say anymore because it’s giving away too much. I will say we find that Lupe is a lesbian and the Logan she has been talking about is a black woman drummer of a band that they stop at a bowling alley to watch.
Even though it’s 2021, this movie still handles Lupe’s sexuality with some honesty as she is afraid how Sunny will react. Her father, played by Jacob Vargas, is also a pastor. This gives the movie some sentimental side as we see Sunny and Lupe become honest about their friendship. Lupe has held it hidden because she’s afraid how Sunny will react.
And of course, there’s the eventual scene in which Sunny and her overbearing mother have a heart to heart.
Over the past few years, there’s been too many raunchy comedies like this which were tired and boring. Most comedies in recent years seem to be too many actors trying to get the last joke in. Here, everyone is working just where they should. The cameo by Chandrasekhar is a welcome surprise and not overused. However, Edi Patterson, who had a crucial role in the black comedy Knives Out, is overused here as a gas station clerk. I feel too many actors and comics are overused in their cameos nowadays and Patterson’s character could’ve been shortened. However, Rachel Dratch is perfect as the sex ed teacher.
Also, lately, too many R-rated comedies have used male genitalia as a joke that is less about comedy than shock value. But here, it’s used quite well.
Even though this is technically her second feature movie as director, Natalie Morales does a good job at making a teen comedy that hasn’t been made before. Her first film, Language Lessons, was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in March and set to be released in America in September. Hopefully, her, Verma and Moroles will have a very successful career.
Zane Says 