Perhaps it is not surprising that I recall the movie’s end-credits sequence. It feels almost like a defense mechanism for the mind not to recall the entire movie and relive one of the more unnecessary movies of the year. It might also be because the majority of the jokes that land are all arising from bloopers—mistakes made by the actors while trying to enact the lines written in a screenplay by Todd M. Friedman and Kevin Haskin. Theoretically, that already says a lot about the humor quotient of the movie.
But then again, the fault lies in the source itself. It’s not that the premise doesn’t hold promise. A woman who had peaked in her college years but is now failing miserably in her adult life as she is partying with a similar fervor to her college days gets fired from her job because she was unable to reach her destination in time. However, her boss instead decides to hire her as her son’s secret babysitter in college so she can bring him out of his shell and help him live out “the best years of his life.”
This could have gone on in a lot of interesting directions in terms of plot threads, and sometimes, the movie lightly touches on those plot threads as well. Molly Singer (Britt Robertson) must learn that the best years of her life are always evolving and will take time and gain different definitions as one grows older. Elliott must learn to embrace his inner confidence while also making the adults realize that college being “the best years of their lives” is a stamp his mother is trying to imprint on, and in reality, that is not true.
But also, the movie states that college life is great, full of wonder and fun, and free from the shackles of adult lives, where wacky and completely unpredictable situations occur. Take, for instance, the third act, where a student sues Molly and Elliott because of the apparent attempted kidnapping of another school’s mascot. This results in a court case that finally settles after a CCTV camera is discovered behind a secret cabinet in a bookshelf in the building they were staying in.
If all of this sounds confusing and you are completely unaware of the tone or even the story it is trying to tell, that’s because this is a confusing film. It is unable to focus on one genre or one plot point. As a result, its comedy suffers as well. There is a sequence where beer-pong, strip poker, and other fraternity games are staged as a live sports event, with live commentary added for good measure. It doesn’t work because at no point is the viewer interested in watching college kids do what college kids usually do and full-grown adults trying to re-live their past lives.
It is inspired by “Weird Science,” “Animal House,” and other college frat comedies of the late 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s, but it doesn’t have the bite or even the political incorrectness of the humor. The humor here is, at best, inconsistent. It is neither raucous nor inherently clever. At the very least, some of the elements or jokes feel so unnecessary and so ingrained in the current climate that one is left to wonder how they are funny in the story’s context. Comedic moments like Ollie (Nico Santos) trying to convince the housing committee head to provide him and Molly housing by convincing her that he is a follower of QAnon are funny in a vacuum. But in the construction of the jokes and the placement of these comedic moments, these jokes do not land.
It’s a shame because the ones that do are raucous and sometimes slapsticky. But when the entire premise of your movie rests on an inciting incident that is completely ludicrous and would only occur in a world that resembles a live-action cartoon, it is hard to take any of the other jokes as convincing ones. It helps, however, that Britt Robertson is effortlessly charming, almost carrying the whole movie on her shoulders. Nico Santos plays Ollie, the queer best friend, which ticks off the cliche box, but unlike the cliche portrayal of the archetype, Ollie is mellower and more sensible.
As young Elliott, Ty Simpkins is charming as the loser kid who slowly gains his confidence back. These actors in a mostly talented ensemble deserved a better film for their efforts. It is also no excuse that when movies like Emergency (2022) or other college comedies exist that both embrace the tropes of college comedy but cleverly push the boundaries as well as retain the cleverness and conviction of humor, “The Re-Education of Molly Singer” ends up being such a bland, forgettable effort.
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