Blockers, farcical parents and grounded kids

Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, and John Cena in Blockers

Blockers is several years old and finally hit the streamers, which means I watched it. This film is low brow comedy, raunchy, with physical gags and ridiculous situations. In other words, it’s funny. It’s about 3 over-protective parents who try to block their daughters from having sex on prom night.

The Blockers from the title are Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz). Lisa’s daughter is Julie (Kathryn Newton), Michell’s daughter is Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), and Hunter’s daughter is Sam (Gideon Adlon).

Kathryn Newton, Gideon Adlon, and Geraldine Viswanathan in Blockers
The daughters

The three girls have been best friends since first grade. They’ve decided they don’t want to head for college as virgins and make a pact to have sex on prom night. Since the parents have no boundaries, they discover the pact by snooping on Julie’s text messages.

Julie has a date with a boy she actually likes, Kayla has a date with a boy who is merely convenient, and Sam has a date with a boy but really has a crush on a cute girl.

Miles Robbins, Kathryn Newton, Graham Phillips, Jimmy Bellinger, Gideon Adlon, and Geraldine Viswanathan in Blockers
The dates, played by Miles Robbins, Graham Phillips, and Jimmy Bellinger

The kids head for the prom, but quickly leave to attend parties. The party locations change frequently but ultimately end up in a hotel where beds are plentiful. The parents follow everywhere, crashing into parties and kids but always a few steps behind.

The film is really about the nutty antics of the parents, but I was rooting for the kids. I especially wanted Sam to ditch the Fedora boy and get together with the girl of her dreams. Julie and Kayla were doing just fine with their dates.

There were several other adult parents in the film, all painted as buffoons like the 3 leads. Marcie (Sarayu Blu) was married to Mitchell. June Diane Raphael played Hunter’s ex. Gary Cole and Gina Gershon played unrelated parents whose sex habits somehow worked into the plot.

One wonders how such foolish adults managed to raise three such level headed kids, but they did. The girls were doing just fine on their own and handled the sex issue perfectly well without any help from the old folks. Each girl had her own solution for the prospective sex, which I thought was a perfect message for the young women watching.

Clearly meant to appeal to teens struggling to break away from the parents, the film was funny and ridiculous in the most base way.

Kay Cannon directed this farce, which is now streaming on Hulu and Prime Video. Whether you saw it years ago or just now watched it like me, I’d like to hear your opinion of the film.


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