Block­ers

Three par­ents pose enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly while their embar­rassed teen daugh­ters roll their eyes on the movie poster. ​‘Par­ents can be such… Block­ers’, it reads, the sil­hou­ette of a cock­er­el smacked in the gap. Yes, we get it. What is less easy to get, how­ev­er, is why Kay Cannon’s lat­est film seems intent on doing itself such a dis­ser­vice. The film’s name and adver­tis­ing cam­paign bears all the hall­marks of a mawk­ish frat pack com­e­dy, but in fact Block­ers is a sharp-wit­ted sto­ry about three girls com­ing of age and their par­ents who are strug­gle to let go.

Les­ley Mann stars as Lisa, the over­bear­ing sin­gle moth­er of Julie (Kathryn New­ton), who is unable to han­dle her daughter’s impend­ing move to col­lege. Julie’s best friends Sam (Gideon Adlon) and Kay­la (Geral­dine Viswanathan) have their own fam­i­ly issues. Sam is wedged between her mum (June Diane Raphael), her step­dad (Han­ni­bal Buress, in a brief but bril­liant role) and her estranged father Hunter (Ike Bar­in­holtz). Kay­la, mean­while, is cod­dled by her affec­tion­ate, over­ly emo­tion­al dad, Mitchell (John Cena), whose para­noia far out­weighs her mother’s (Sarayu Rao) lib­er­al atti­tude. When the par­ents dis­cov­er that the girls have made a pact to lose their vir­gin­i­ty on prom night, Lisa, Hunter and Mitchell ral­ly togeth­er to, ahem, cock block their their own children.

Block­ers offers a hilar­i­ous and thought-pro­vok­ing cock­tail of dif­fer­ent views on sex­u­al blos­som­ing, and scriptwrit­ers Bri­an and Jim Kehoe deliv­er laugh-a-minute com­ic dia­logue with­out los­ing sight of the film’s sim­ple premise; that rais­ing a daugh­ter is both a joy and a night­mare that’s rid­dled with anx­i­eties. There are some great age-gap gags as the par­ents attempt to nav­i­gate the con­fus­ing worlds of their mil­len­ni­al off­spring, which esca­late into some wince-wor­thy escapades includ­ing naked strangers in blind­folds and an inci­dent involv­ing a beer keg. And yet there is real tear­jerk­ing sense of empa­thy behind each of these young women’s sto­ries – to the extent that you’ll want to hug your par­ents tight next time you see them.

With a mix of fam­i­lies who each har­bour dis­tinc­tive atti­tudes about how to bring up a child, the film offers an unex­pect­ed exam­i­na­tion of female sex­u­al­i­ty from the per­spec­tive of dif­fer­ent gen­ders, sex­u­al­i­ties and cul­tures. It is a lit­tle over­stretched, with an extend­ed vom­it­ing scene that could have hit the cut­ting room floor, but it is worth the price of admis­sion for the humour and heart deliv­ered by a stel­lar ensem­ble. Look out for some smart movie ref­er­ences, com­mit­ted phys­i­cal com­e­dy and a very mov­ing father-daugh­ter interlude.