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'American Pie'

"Tops on my list... Their Filet Mignon"

John Tanasychuk Detroit Free Press
:January 8th, 1999

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A hilarious lesson in life, love and libido.

Yes, it's true. American Pie does
push the Hollywood teen sex come-
dy to the next randy, raunchy level.
But is that really such a bad thing
when it results in a movie as
vibrant, funny and surprisingly ten-
der as this one?
While following four male high-
school seniors, sexual no-hitters
who are determined to lose their
virginiry, screenwriter Adam Herz
and filmmakers Chris and Paul
Weitz portray a world where teens
are equally obsessed with, and baf-
fled by sex.
Although the film has many
familiar elements, this fresh slice of
American adolescence isn't baked
from the same warmed-over stereo-
types and formulaic storylines of the
recent batch of teen movies.
The comfortably middle-class
students of East Great Falls High
aren't fixated on popularity or main-
taining a rigid caste system. They're
just trying to get though their teens
without too many clumsy missteps.
American Pie is a prime example of
the comedy of embarrassment, and
no one's dignity gets off unscathed.
From the opening scene, where
his parents (Eugene Levy and Molly
Cheek) intrude on a romantic
encounter Jim (Jason Biggs) is hav-
ing with a tube sock while watching
scrambled cable pornography,
American Pie is about transgression
and getting caught. It's also about
getting over it, and doggedly pursu-
ing a goal, even if the reasons for
getting what you want become less
clear the closer you get.
While Jim's travails are the most
explicit and painful — including an

erotic interlude with a warm apple
pie -- he's hardly the worst off. Finch
(Eddie Kaye Thomas) responds to
being an outsider by turning himself
into a Latin-spouting eccentric seem-
ingly above it all, while Oz (Chris
Klein) can't use his wide-eyed good
looks and jock status to get dates
because of an awkward shyness.
The frustrated half of a seeming-
ly ideal, clean-cut couple, Kevin
(Thomas Ian Nicholas) has reached
an impasse with Vicky (Tara Reid),
whose hesitation to do the deed has
a lot to do with their future at geo-
graphically distant universities
As the virgins stumble toward
their self-imposed deadline of prom
night — before they head off to col-
leges like University of Michigan
and Michigan State (it's pretty obvi-
ous a U-M grad wrote the screen-
play) — it becomes apparent that
who's really in charge are the girls:
Vicky's friend Jessica (Natasha
Lyonne), the raspy-voiced keeper of
sexual knowledge; foreign exchange
student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth),
the siren of Jim's dreams; and
,
"goody-two-shoes choir girl priss"
Heather (Mena Suvari), who recog-
nizes Oz's sweetness.
When they complain bitterly of
being "condemned to celibacy," these
boys are voicing a distinct feeling
they're missing out on something
everyone else in the world knows
about. The most interesting aspect of
American Pie is how the filmmakers
make it clear that losing their virgini-
ty is just the first step in finding
what they're looking for. Rated R.

Zide, "and there are managers who are
actually on a movie set producing, and
we definitely fall into the latter [cate-
gory]. We're active producers."
In a case of small-world coinci-
dence, Zide and Herz are both Jewish
and from Michigan (Herz's family in
East Grand Rapids is Reform; Zide's in
West Bloomfield is Conservative),
although neither is currently observant.
"When I first got [to LA] and I had
no money," Zide explains, "I wanted
to go to synagogue. The synagogue on

Wilshire Boulevard said, 'I'm sorry,
you have to pay to go.' And I said, `I
don't have any money.' They said,
`Well, we're sorry.' I haven't gone
since.
"If you're Jewish, and you have no
money," he continues, "they should
allow you in. To me, that was a com-
plete insult, so I just don't do it."
But Zide, who credits his parents
for providing him with a "grounded
base of values," wasn't completely
deterred.

—

Reviewed by Serena Donadoni

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