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Prom: We Just Don’t Give a Damn

By Andrew Stires · May 2, 2011

Prom

Asking a 38-year-old guy to review Disney's Prom probably isn't going to end well. Not because I was the only guy in the theater, not counting the usher who introduced the film. Not because it was awkward when the mom sitting in front of me with her daughters looked at me funny. Hell, I even brought my girlfriend along as a kind of shield to deflect any awkwardness. After all, I could always glance her way and role my eyes as if to say, “Yeah, she dragged me to this one.” No, the problem with asking a 38-year-old guy to review Prom is the simple fact that I grew up in the '80's watching a steady stream of classic teen movies that all managed to capture the epic highs and devastating lows of high school. John Hughes alone gave us such greats as Pretty in Pink,Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and of course, The Breakfast Club. Teen movies, especially teen prom movies, are a staple of American cinema that when done well can ignite a fervor anticipation in tweens yet to get there, capture a realistic essence of teens already engrossed within it, as well as offer a fun twinge of nostalgia for those of us who have (Thank God) clearly survived it.  However, when executed poorly, we end up with… Prom.

The movie opens with a voice-over from protagonist, Nova Prescott (Aimee Teegarden) who force feeds us the theme of the movie by reminding us that prom is the singular moment in high school where people can set aside the stereotypes, cliques, and conflicts to come together for one magical night. (Yeah, that’s reality). As she walks the halls handing out prom flyers, we’re introduced to all the major high school stereotypes: the jock, the prom queen, the punk chick, the loner, the rebel, and the stoner (although since this is a Disney flick, we never actually see him take a bong hit). One would expect to see some of the traditional high school conflict in this opening scene, but everyone gets along and gladly accepts Nova's invitations. Even the punk chick tosses her a cool nod. Really? So much for having to set aside all those painful, divisive roles we're all cast into in high school. The only hint of any conflict we get is from the rebel Jesse Richter (Thomas McDonell), who removes the prom flyer from next to his locker and sticks it on the opposite wall. Seriously, at least tear the thing down, wad it up in a ball, and slam it in a trash can. You are the rebel after all.

All these characters, sequestered together in an environment that is supposed to be infested with turmoil, yet there is little conflict. And this is a problem. Because when it comes to movie magic, conflict is the almighty elixir. Without conflict, there is no tension, and without tension, we just don’t give a damn. And in Prom, we don’t give a damn because we simply don’t care about the characters. Period.

Any good teen movie should have a likeable, interesting, and hopefully complex cast of characters whose storylines we get involved in, and for whom we hope and fear throughout. That’s the problem with Prom; it’s a collection of underdeveloped, uninteresting characters in uninteresting situations:

Couple #1: Nova and Jesse

With a name like Nova, I’d like to think you’d have the personality to back it up. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing about Nova is her name. She is head of the prom committee, class president, and straight A student with a full ride to college. She even has a loving, supportive family. Compare her to a character like Andie (Molly Ringwald) in Pretty in Pink, who hangs out with misfits, comes from poverty, takes care of her father who is coping with divorce, and struggles with the harsh realities of classism, Nova is beyond bland. She’s completely forgettable. But at least she has Jesse, the dangerous rebel who looks like Judd Nelson stepped out of The Breakfast Club and landed in Prom complete with long hair and fingerless gloves. And this is original, how?

Couple #2: Mei and Justin

Mei Kwan (Yin Chang) and Justin Wexler (Jared Kusnitz) are the high school sweethearts who have plans to attend the same college. Only, Mei has been accepted into design school in New York and she’s grappling with how to tell Justin, which leads to fights over petty things like whether she chose the right prom dress. And this is interesting, why?

Couple #3: Tyler and Jordan

Tyler Barso (DeVaughn Nixon) and Jordan Lundley (Kylie Bunbury) are the most likely to be prom king and queen couple, but Tyler secretly has feeling for Simone Daniels (Danielle Campbell), who we know nothing about other than she is pretty and guys like her. And pretty and popular is cool, because?

Couple #4: Rolo and Ali

And Ali Gomez (Janelle Ortiz) whose only function in the entire film (although she apparently is a close friend of Nova and Mei) is to pry into stoner guy Rolo’s (Joe Adler) business and catch him in a lie about his prom date, the mysterious Athena, who supposedly lives in Canada. Athena who?

The problem is we don’t really care about any of these stories because the characters are so shallow and their problems are really not that bad. I realize that everything is magnified a thousand times in high school, but still, we should care about what happens to these people. And even though all these half-baked stories do resolve, they do so with very little impact:

Mei confesses to Justin that she's going away to school in New York, but Justin smiles and says they'll work it out. And because it’s all too easy, we don’t care. When Jordan finds out that Tyler likes Simone, she simply dumps him, takes all his pictures down from her bedroom mirror, and moves on with her life. And because it’s not a big deal, we don’t care. To top it all off, Nova has little, if any, interaction with any of these characters or their storylines, sharing literally only one major scene in which she, Mei, and Ali hang out in Nova's room discussing how Nova might be falling for Jesse. One scene to solidify the importance and impact of friendship. So in the end, because we don’t believe in these friendships, we just don’t give a damn.