Frottage cheese: Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Aviva get down.

Geek Outlook

Judd Apatow’s band of losers is taking over earth—or maybe just comedy.

by Sean Burns

2007: the year Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen saved movie comedy.

Our summer kicked off with the sublime Knocked Up (written and directed by Apatow, starring Rogen), and now it closes with the even raunchier, even funnier Superbad (produced by Apatow, co-written by Rogen, who also plays a crucial supporting role).

Knocked Up turned into this year’s most unexpected blockbuster, the only mega-hit powered by generous reviews and audience goodwill rather than a presold multimillion-dollar marketing campaign. Superbad seems poised to follow a similar trajectory, even though I couldn’t imagine dragging my mom out to see this one the way I did with Knocked Up.

So filthy, so naughty, so true, Superbad is simply a joy to behold. I laughed so hard I hurt myself. The most cutting and straightforward teen sex comedy since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it’s a dirty movie with an overabundance of empathy and heart. If Apatow hadn’t already helmed a TV series called Freaks and Geeks, that title would fit here just fine.

Graduation looms large on the horizon for Seth (Jonah Hill, the corpulent young comic who so memorably shouted “Shma-shmortion”in Knocked Up). He’s already sick with separation anxiety, as his best friend and constant companion Evan (Michael Cera) just got into Dartmouth, while Seth barely squeaked his way into State.

Seth likes to overcompensate with wild theories about non-Ivy League girls having lower standards, but the prospect of starting a new life without his trustworthy sidekick clearly has him spooked.

Overcompensation is indeed key to the character, as Seth can’t help drawing pictures of penises all the time, and he’s prone to loud, blisteringly profane monologues, even though he clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s a potty-mouthed, gynecologically fixated bluster of a kid whose entire sexual education took place on dubious websites.

Evan is the meek one, played by the astonishingly gifted Cera as though he hasn’t quite figured out how to work his body just yet. This apple-cheeked actor’s crack comic timing will be familiar to fans of TV’s late, lamented Arrested Development, and it’s a kick to see Cera’s arms locked immobile to his torso, while his priceless one-liners escape in whispered, almost pained squeaks.

A typical Friday night of Web-surfing and sneaking Dad’s beers gets postponed by something that’s never happened before to our dorky twosome: an honest-to-God party invitation. From pretty girls!

Seth has an instant epiphany. He’s always overhearing stories about gals regretting getting so smashed that they ended up sleeping with losers—this could be his big chance to be that mistake! The only catch is Seth and Evan are asked to supply all the alcohol.

Enter McLovin. Actually, his character’s name is Fogell, and he’s portrayed by newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse as such a brilliantly squirmy 98-pound weakling with slushy, saliva-voiced delusions of grandeur, he makes Napoleon Dynamite look like James Dean. But Fogell just so happens to have an ID that says he’s a 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor called McLovin (no last name necessary), and thus our adventure begins.

It wouldn’t be fair to divulge where exactly this wild night takes our heroes, save to say the intricate gag constructions devised by Seth Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg (take another look at those character names and wonder if this isn’t autobiographical) spin out from disasters to delights and back again. The characters keep finding ways to surprise us, locating improbably touching pangs of pathos, even as you can’t believe what you’re hearing.

Director Greg Mottola has pulled off a neat trick here tonally. Sex comedies (especially ones this audacious) so often collapse into a sort of bullying, but Superbad slickly foregrounds our protagonists’ crippling sense of inferiority. Even amid a never-ending string of period-stains and drunken BJ jokes, they’re always the most neurotic, terrified guys in the room.

The key to the picture is a lunatic subplot involving a couple of sad-sack cops played by Rogen and SNL’s Bill Hader. Sure, they puff out their chests and wave around guns, but deep down these two are every bit as needy, clingy and desperate for approval as Seth and Evan. (High school never really ends, does it?) Superbad’s title is a gag emblematic of the picture’s off-kilter, welcome humanism, as just about everybody on-screen is tortured by feelings of inadequacy, and yet somehow bluffs their way through life, scared shitless.

The movie is so winning and relatable because it’s all about faking it. In that sense, we are all McLovin.