17 Again

"Wow, you look JUST like my husband!"

There is any number of conventional ways in which 17 Again might have been bad. It could have been cloying, maudlin, unfunny, obnoxious, you name it. I suppose I should be impressed that 17 Again turned out to be bad in a way I did not anticipate: it is awkward and creepy. The film may earn praise in some circles for taking its story in some uncomfortable directions; ordinarily, I would be sympathetic to that argument. But the truth is, I wanted to leave. This is an unpleasant little comedy that may make your skin crawl.

Leslie Mann’s character says it all here when she groans: “oooh, this is super-inappropriate.” 17 Again is a body swap comedy with a twist, or more accurately a lack of the expected twist: When thirty-five-year old Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) becomes his seventeen-year-old self (Zac Efron) with the help of a mysterious school janitor, he doesn’t actually go back in time to the days when he was seventeen years old. Instead, he becomes seventeen years old today — while everyone else remains the same age.

As in the typical body swap movie, the transformation is imposed on the protagonist to treat some personal ailments. In the film’s elegant, lovely opening sequence, Mike — actually seventeen — ditches the basketball game that would have earned him a scholarship when his girlfriend Scarlett informs him that she’s pregnant. Eager to do the right thing, he kisses her and agrees to marry her, then and there. Eighteen years later, we learn, he is estranged from his kids and in the midst of divorcing Scarlett. The problem? Evidently, he has spent the past two decades complaining about all the things he could have done had he not married Scarlett at 17.

Mike’s mission, then, is to go back to high school as his 17 year-old self and reconnect with his kids (Sterling Knight and Michelle Trachtenberg), win back his wife (Leslie Mann), and realize that they’re the best thing that ever happened to them. And here you begin to see why 17 Again is fundamentally misconceived. First, there’s no reason — logistical or thematic — why Mike should have to turn into a seventeen-year old to rekindle his relationship with his family. He doesn’t learn any lessons that he couldn’t have learned had he just tried to fix his family life like a normal person. Typically, the body switch is supposed to teach something, or at least accomplish something. Here, the movie’s central story hook is pointless to the story, which is the height of sloppy screenwriting.

Second and more importantly, what we end up with is lots of scenes of teenage Mike coming on to thirty-five-year old Scarlett, who of course notices that this strange new friend of her son’s looks just like her husband did when she married him. This is profoundly weird and uncomfortable to watch, though the movie seems to think it’s hilarious and cute. At one point Mike’s daughter, whom he tries to steer away from her bully of a boyfriend, tries to seduce him, which the film again thinks is farcical but is actually kind of disturbing. It doesn’t help that Mike is incapable of assimilating into life as a high school senior. Faced with the prospect of sitting through health class with his daughter, he responds by making an impassioned plea for teen abstinence — another odd scene that mistakes embarrassment for hilarity.

Zac Efron seems most comfortable in the film’s opening sequence, where he gets to preen, showboat, and break into an impromptu dance sequence. He shows no particular gift for the subtle physical comedy required by the body swap plot, and his Disney Channel roots exaggerate the screenplay’s tendency toward syrupy earnestness instead of defusing it. He gets a foil in the form of Thomas Lennon, playing Mike’s ultra-geeky (and now ultra-rich) childhood buddy; Lennon’s wackier comic stylings get some laughs and are probably the highlight of the film.

This is, oddly enough, director Burr Steers’ follow-up to the wonderful Igby Goes Down. He gets off to a great start, crafting a lyrical opening that made me sit up and pay attention. But that turns out to be his only moment of distinction. The rest of 17 Again is entirely generic — or rather, it does its damnedest to be generic while venturing into thorny material. It’s a weirdly oblivious film, turning out skeevy and sometimes almost unwatchable.

-- Eugene Novikov

Released:	2009
Starring:	Melora Hardin, Sterling Knight, Thomas Lennon, Zac Efron, Hunter Parrish, Michelle Trachtenberg, Leslie Mann
Directed by:	Burr Steers
Rated:	PG-13