Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
View full sizeBrandy (Aubrey Plaza, left) gets some frank sexual advice from her sister Amber (Rachel Bilson) in “The To Do List.”
Cosmo or Penthouse? Where would you turn for sexual advice?
That’s just one of the burning questions confronting Brandy Klark, the good girl embarking on new sexual escapades in “The To Do List.” It’s refreshing to see the whole super-horny-and-confused teenager tale told from a woman’s perspective, but if that was the only thing this film had to offer, the comedy would quickly run dry.
Happily, the story of an overachiever in search of summer sex education has a lot more going for it. Writer-director Maggie Carey has reached back to her own end-of-high-school-beginning-of-college experiences in Boise, Idaho, in 1993, and created characters, relationships and a story to go with all of the crude, rude, raunchy moments in her script.
REVIEW
The To Do List
Who: With Aubrey Plaza, Johnny Simmons, Rachel Bilson, Bill Hader. Written and directed by Maggie Carey.
Rated: R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic dialogue, drug and alcohol use, and language.
Running time: 105 minutes.
When: Opens Friday.
Where: Area theaters.
Grade: B+
Brandy, valedictorian, class president, mathlete and virgin, is played with beautiful sincerity by Aubrey Plaza in her first starring role. Plaza is best known as April, the sarcastic assistant with the deadpan delivery on “Parks and Recreation,” but in “The To Do List” she gets to shine as an earnest girl trying hard to learn in a hurry.
Spurred on by her friends Fiona and Wendy (Alia Shawkat and Sarah Steele), Brandy decides that although she is a well-rounded brainy feminist whose heroes include Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem, she lacks certain areas of knowledge.
She draws up an extensive list of acts and positions, but she hopes to ultimately hook up with the guitar-strumming blond buffness that is Rusty Waters (Scott Porter). In the meantime, while she works as a lifeguard at a local pool, there are plenty of other male distractions and influences, including study-buddy Cameron (Johnny Simmons), dorky friend Duffy (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), co-worker Derrick (Donald Glover), rocker dude Van (Andy Samberg) and slacker boss Willy (Bill Hader).
Some of the funniest moments erupt from the ongoing testiness between Brandy and her older sister, the promiscuous Amber (Rachel Bilson), and her parents, open-minded mom (Connie Britton) and worried dad (Clark Gregg).
“The Do List” is well-written, well-acted and a winning fictional debut for Carey, who has directed documentaries and several shorts. She is smart enough to make even the most tangential supporting players real characters, and she delights in revisiting 1993 with references to Phish followers, Pearl Jam, Kenny G, wine coolers, Skorts and “electronic mail.” But it’s Plaza who makes it all work as the center of the circus. She proves that she is much more than just a sitcom snark queen.
Article source: http://www.cleveland.com/moviebuff/index.ssf/2013/07/the_to_do_list_aubrey_plaza_an.html