The Inbetweeners Movie ★★★★
THERE’S a film culture theory called the ‘six laugh test’.
Basically, if a comedy doesn’t make you laugh out loud at least six times it’s not good enough.
The Inbetweeners Movie, based on the cult television series, smashes the test.
On my most-recent viewing I decided to keep track of the laugh aloud moments, trying hard to make sure I didn’t artificially inflate the score. The fact it was my fifth viewing and I knew most of the jokes would also balance the test.
I forgot to keep counting after about laugh number 40.
There is another theory called the ‘bechdel test’ which judges a film by how often female characters talk to each other about anything besides their relationships with men.
For that one, The Inbetweeners Movie doesn’t even bother to try.
If you have seen the English TV series you will know it’s rude, crude, sexist, mysogynist, a bunch of other ‘ists’ and full of foul language. I was going to say it’s not a comedy for everyone, but in one way it is.
How does it get away with it? How does it leave you smiling afterwards when most gross-out American comedies just leave a bad taste in the mouth?
The answer is firstly it genuinely loves its characters and encourages you to identify and laugh with them. Secondly, it recognises we are presenting a specific moment in time and male behaviour. Yes, their attitudes are deplorable, but deep down they are nice young people, obsessed with sex like 90 percent of us at that age.
The four adolescents are also difficult to pigeon-hole; they’re not fully geeks but still tend to be ostracised by the majority of other students because of their unique traits.
Jay is a pathological liar on most subjects, but particularly sex; Simon is a hopeless romantic, Neal is completely clueless and Will is a super-nerd with a potty mouth. But the thing is you couldn’t possibly hate them. They might annoy the hell out of you – as they frequently do with each other – but you know they ultimately have your back and everything is being done for laughs.
The series of encounters with females are also apprached with a nice balance of crassness and even tenderness with the boys learning much about themselves, whether they realise or not.
The series only ran for three hilarious seasons. At the end they were leaving high school. The film follows immediately on and we join them on an end-of-school trip to a hedonistic Greek resort targeted by leavers.
I’m not going to say any more because if you have never seen the series you are in for a great treat.
The film had a sequel, set in Australia, which had a lot of good moments but didn’t quite hit the same heights. There is talk of another television season as well. Can’t wait.