PROM DATES - Mark Reviews Movies

Prom Dates, Hulu

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | May 3, 2024

The conceit, gags, and performances of Prom Dates, in which a pair of longtime friends try to find last-minute dates for the biggest school-sponsored event of their lives, are all solid. In theory, this movie is effective, simply because of those elements, but there's something missing to keep this comedy from actually succeeding and being as funny as it might have been.

That's a genuine sense of desperate momentum. Screenwriter D.J. Mausner has put together a string of wacky scenarios, as the friends navigate awful romantic relationships and parties and clubs looking to have the perfect prom night, but director Kim O. Nguyen doesn't quite connect those scenes with a feeling of necessity. The movie goes through the motions, which are often amusing and sometimes quite funny, but this kind of material almost demands a frantic energy that never manifests here.

The pals are Jess (Antonia Gentry) and Hannah (Julia Lester), who made a pact after sneaking into prom freshman year that the former would be voted prom queen and the latter would attend with the love of her life. It's a blood pact, by the way, and the spurting red stuff after Hannah cuts her palm just a bit too deep certainly sets the tone of the humor that follows.

Now, it's senior year. Jess is dating the popular Luca (Jordan Buhat), pretty much guaranteeing that her side of the agreement will be met, even if it means dealing with Luca's constant pressuring of her to have sex with him. Meanwhile, Hannah is with Greg (Kenny Ridwan), a musical theater nerd whose affection for his girlfriend is as suffocating as his singing-and-dancing "promposal" at a student assembly.

Things go wrong, of course. Jess catches Luca trying to hook up with another girl in his family's pool, and the last straw for Hannah is when Greg announces that he has already transferred to the college she's going to attend in the fall. Plus, Hannah has only been dating Greg to hide the fact that she's a lesbian and is too scared to come out. Jess knew this for a while but, being the good friend that she is, never let on or tried to convince Hannah to say something, because that's her decision to make at the right time.

These two characters are inherently likeable. That's not only because the two actors play their distinct parts well (Jess is a bit quiet in her drive to be popular, while Hannah is louder in her social awkwardness) and play off each other even better (which makes their separation as the night goes on more noticeable). It's also on account of how recognizably flawed they are.

Jess is so determined to become prom queen and prove she's something that she'll basically go along with anyone or anything, as long as she believes it'll help her accomplish her goal. Hannah is so scared of what other people might think of her that she refuses to be who she actually is. As much as the slang and other particulars of being in high school may change over time, the real concerns of being a teenager remain a constant, and Mausner's script taps into that with these two.

Anyway, the plot has Jess and Hannah going around town, primarily to a couple of house parties—one held by a former classmate and the other at a neighboring fraternity—but also to a dance club and the prom itself, and finding themselves in assorted, uncomfortable situations. The first party, for example, has Hannah working up the courage to flirt with other girls, even if that means getting a little chemical assistance. The payoff to that little adventure has Hannah ruining the first time she ever sees naked breasts in real life.

Jess has become convinced that, if she can't go to prom with the most popular boy in her class, any college guy will be an acceptable substitute. That leads to a couple of scenes with two different guys in bedrooms. One is an exchange student, who apparently can say whatever he wants in Italian and keep Jess interested (The reality of his intentions are dark in a way that's so over-the-top it flips back to being funny), and the other seems to be heading in one way until, well, the poor guy can't say anything after accepting Jess' invitation.

Meanwhile, Greg is trying to track down Hannah to work out things, leading him to her brother Jacob (JT Neal), who still holds a flame for Jess after the two of them had sex—a fact neither wants to tell Hannah. The complications keep mounting, and if the absence of an underlying push prevents the jokes from flowing naturally from one to the next, the script eventually undermines its own comedic intentions and drive, too. There's an obvious formula to stories like this one, and Mausner follows it exactly and in the most predictable ways. When the chemistry between the two leads is as strong as it is here, though, the inevitable moment when something comes between them instantly deflates the material.

Prom Dates has the right idea—updating the sort of high school-based comedies of the 1980s and '90s with a contemporary tilt. That goal may not be new, but the humor here has an unexpected edge that, unfortunately, succumbs to the idle execution and an ultimate reliance on a clichéd plot.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products