I have to hand it to Richard Linklater in all his glory,  after the one-two punch of the 12 year epic Boyhood (which saw itself sitting at #1 on my 2014 list of best movies), he thought why not make a comedy. Now, it’s never an easy feature to bring up an original comedy and have it land on it’s feet to a general audience. But, if any director could have pulled it off, it was Linklater. Everybody Wants Some!! Is a semi-quasi sequel/brother-in law to Linklater’s masterpiece Dazed and Confused which gave the start to many recognizable faces today and had the best kind of one-liners you could ask for “Alright, alright alright”. Linklater is undoubtedly the master of modern-hangout films, and Everybody Wants Some!! is a laugh out loud riot that is equal parts juvenile and sentimental while still being able to distinguish itself as a worthy successor to the Dazed and Confused arsenal.  

As opposed to Dazed, the quintessential movie about 1970s high-school life, Everybody Wants Some!! represents a logistical follow-up with Linklater himself stating this film picks up where his career crowning Boyhood ended, with Mason growing up and heading to college. It is the fall of 1980, and from the sight of the sunset fading in the distance and the stash of vinyl records in the back of a smooth-rocking ‘72 Oldsmobile cope, we don’t need the opening titles to tell us what decade we have been transported too. When we first meet Jake (Blake Jenner of ‘Glee’ fame) who is an all-american pitcher with aspirations of making it big, he is just starting his freshman year a fictional university in southeast Texas. Moving into a rugged down baseball house with his teammates, as he is greeted with a wide variety of quirky, yet easily relatable characters. Some guys like McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin – sporting the low-brow porn stash) who despises pitchers, and talks a big game are not so relatable.

But there are some friendly personalities in the mix like Finn (a scene stealing Glen Powell) – a smooth talking pick-up artist who uses some strange metaphors to pick up woman at local clubs and will easily adapt to any social situation he encounters – if you’re looking for a parallel to Matthew McConaughey’s character from Dazed and Confused – look no further. Then we have Dale (J. Quinton Johnson) who stands as the baseball team’s sole black player; Roper (Ryan Guzman – remember The Boy Next Door anyone?) a leader who takes the newly minted freshman out on a nice stroll around campus to pick up the hotties. And who could forget Willoughby (Wyatt Russell) a truth teller who, if you can get him to stop taking bong hits, is full of knowledge. Willoughby might have took the cake for the most weird comrade among the group of horny college students, but those features belong to Niles (Juston Street) and Billy Autry (Will Brittan) the former goes on belligerent, self-aggrandizing rants and the latter can’t quite seem to grow up and move on from his hometown values.

All these escapades flow with a slew of terrific production values that oozes from scene to scene, and it’s here that Linklater shows his mastery of how to accumulate a terrific ensemble with some great riffs on the decade itself. He demonstrates the epitome of slackers in all their glory and asks us to embrace them with open arms, something that is never easy to do. Linklater fills his frames with each characteristic type you could imagine without overstuffing – the ladykiller and the ambitious dreamer among those arcs.

Linklater is one of the few filmmakers who can capture the essence of an era with such pristine dedication that you could argue the film was actually made in the 80s (which is also aided by the beautiful cinematography). And the fact we get to see the film through the lens of Jake, a dapper young, likeable, and curious pitcher out of his element makes Everybody Want’s Some!! even more rewarding. At first, Jake is shy and whimsical but as the film progresses we see him grow and become more confident. The confidence which doesn’t stop him from striking up a romantic courtship with Beverly (Zoey Deutch) a fine-arts major who helps capture all those ‘bubbly’ feelings we all have experienced at some point in our life.

All those good subplots aside, the film is hysterical in the nuances it does embody with each roving moment, while some of them are predictable, they often produced strong results. This is a rare film that, rather than using it’s characters sex drives as a motive for sloppy throwaway gags, wears it’s raunchy humor on it’s sleeve. While the title is a reference to the classic song by Van Halen (which is one of the many hits on the headbanging soundtrack) it is also a strong reassurance in the sex, fame and victory that course through these young men’s veins.  

Yes, Everybody Wants Some!! Is a hellacious film that is filled with crude bits, nudity and strong vulgarity, but at least it never tries to be anything that it’s not. We should be so fortunate that we have a filmmaker that knows the teen spirit so well, otherwise we might be stuck with some horrific comedies. Still, for every six misfires we are lucky enough to get an Everybody Wants Some!! that reminds us it’s okay to laugh with the characters and not just at them. A