Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater, 2016)

[Professor Wagstaff]

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some

[mfunk9786]

Link is broken.

[Professor Wagstaff]

Working link

[Trees]

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some

Looks like a disaster.

[criterion10]

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some

Looks like a disaster.

How can a film be anything but when compared with The Assassin?

[domino harvey]

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some

Looks like a disaster.

How can a film be anything but when compared with The Assassin?

A+

[Trees]

[Roger Ryan]

The trailer for Dazed and Confused captured very little of what made that film work, so I suspect this may be a similar situation. While the less idiosyncratic films Linklater has directed (thinking School of Rock) are easier to encapsulate in a two-minute trailer, his more personal efforts always look quite underwhelming when reduced to supposed highlights.

[Trees]

The trailer for Dazed and Confused captured very little of what made that film work, so I suspect this may be a similar situation. While the less idiosyncratic films Linklater has directed (thinking School of Rock) are easier to encapsulate in a two-minute trailer, his more personal efforts always look quite underwhelming when reduced to supposed highlights.

Well, ostensibly this is a comedy or at least a humorous film, yet I did not laugh or even grin once. Instead, I was scratching my head and/or wincing at the failed jokes.

[Zot!]

Yeah, that trailer makes it look like Beerfest level bad.

[djproject]

This is why I don't always trust trailers, let alone watch them. (#TrailersAlwaysLie)

[lacritfan]

Really looking forward to it for nostalgia's sake alone. (Dude, awesome stereo components. How many watts per channel?)

[Cold Bishop]

So did the forum completely pass on Everybody Wants Some!!? Because I admit to being quite charmed by it, and in usual Linklater fashion, find it a "minor" work that is much more fetching than his more ambitious projects. Ultimately the comparisons to Dazed & Confused probably hurt it, and are probably largely facile: it's definitely a less panoramic, more intimate film, certainly more male-centric in design… but why blast a film for being something it's not.

I don't know why I never made the comparison before, but the film finds Linklater at his most (Southern, proletariat) Whit Stillman-esque. Obviously there's the verbose, hang–out approach to cinema. There's a similar slice of life approach that's more concerned with socializing than society, an acute affection for all the rituals and morés that arise when young adults gather. More importantly, there's the warmth they exhibit for characters who might otherwise attract knee-jerk dislike – be they elitist twits or macho jocks - despite (and often because) recognizing their foibles, but not allowing them to define them. Who would have pegged Stillman's as the sleeper success, while the Linklater sinked without a trace?

Certainly of all the cast, if Glen Powell isn't immediately plucked into something approaching stardom, Hollywood is doing something wrong. And I didn't realize until now how much I want a Linklater film set entirely in dance clubs, house parties and music venues. They're they point where the film comes the closest to falling into the period-film trap of "pop-culture checklist", but Linklater navigates it with aplomb.

[aox]

So did the forum completely pass on Everybody Wants Some!!? Because I admit to being quite charmed by it, and in usual Linklater fashion, find it a "minor" work that is much more fetching than his more ambitious projects. Ultimately the comparisons to Dazed & Confused probably hurt it, and are probably largely facile: it's definitely a less panoramic, more intimate film, certainly more male-centric in design… but why blast a film for being something it's not.

I don't know why I never made the comparison before, but the film finds Linklater at his most (Southern, proletariat) Whit Stillman-esque. Obviously there's the verbose, hang–out approach to cinema. There's a similar slice of life approach that's more concerned with socializing than society, an acute affection for all the rituals and morés that arise when young adults gather. More importantly, there's the warmth they exhibit for characters who might otherwise attract knee-jerk dislike – be they elitist twits or macho jocks - despite (and often because) recognizing their foibles, but not allowing them to define them. Who would have pegged Stillman's as the sleeper success, while the Linklater sinked without a trace?

Certainly of all the cast, if Glen Powell isn't immediately plucked into something approaching stardom, Hollywood is doing something wrong. And I didn't realize until now how much I want a Linklater film set entirely in dance clubs, house parties and music venues. They're they point where the film comes the closest to falling into the period-film trap of "pop-culture checklist", but Linklater navigates it with aplomb.

Agreed. I thought it was between good and great. And, I personally felt it was a huge disservice to include any mention of Dazed and Confused (it doesn't in the film) to attempt to attract viewers. This was clearly a marketing move or something Linklater did to secure funding (more forgiving). It's definitely one of his lesser films, but it still should have gotten more of an audience than it did. It had more in relation to Boyhood than it did Dazed and Confused.

[Black Hat]

I thought it was terrific with a free spirit to it I wished Boyhood had more of without being overly sentimental which the Before Trilogy occasionally suffers from.

[djproject]

I saw this months ago (so yes, the trailer did deter me from seeing it). It took a little while to break into it but once I was in (by the second scene or so), I was in all the way. It has a lot of the hallmarks you'd expect from Linklater: slice of life, casual but never boring pace, interesting cast of characters. If you like that, there should be no problem liking this. In comparison to Dazed and Confused, I would say that while it has a smaller scope (even though the time scale has quadrupled), the characters are allowed to show off more dimension and do not always come off like their initial impression.

[Roger Ryan]

Dazed & Confused, produced a mere 16 years after the time period shown in the film, used the hang-over of the 60s culture as background while investing more in the diversity of its characters. Everybody Wants Some!! is a period film produced 35 years after the era and places far greater emphasis on the culture of 1980 than it does on its relatively homogeneous characters (a Texas college baseball team living in the same house). The result is a far more nostalgic reverie than the earlier effort and also much more autobiographical for Linklater, a college baseball player who was swayed to the arts by a girlfriend majoring in Theater. I was charmed by its rush through all things "1980", from the Sugarhill Gang singalong to the visits to the "Urban Cowboy" bar and the punk club.

[tenia]

I just watched it, and probably was I expecting too much from it (loving Dazed & Confused) and ended up being, in the end, relatively disappointed by it.

It's not a bad movie per se, it's just isn't a smooth one (not criticizing the lack of plot, I couldn't care less, but rather it feels, as a whole, like a bunch of vignettes which feels disjointed) and its characters aren't individualized enough to me. The Verge's review sums up quite well what, I think, was missing in Everybody Wants Some!! that made Dazed & Confused such a good movie : Everybody feels too repetitive, with characters not different enough from one another.

It remains entertaining enough, especially in its second half, but that's because the first one simply takes way too much time trying to flesh out characters while, in the end, many of them will quicly slip from my memory.

It's funny, and it's light, and Wyatt Russell is awesome in there (probably the best character of the bunch, but of course it's the one that just leaves halfway), but it's just very minor. Even aside from the comparison with Dazed & Confused, there might simply be too many useless superficial characters which, at the end, should have been left aside. I get the point about trying to hit every type of characters Linklater probably met when he was in college, but this Jay Niles guy ? The movie probably could have done without him. Plus, again, the edit felt too disjointed to warranty a smooth pace, and clocking at 1h57, the movie would have benefited either from being shorter, or from trying to get vignettes a bit less loosely connected. Maybe with a smaller time scale ?

[Gregory]

I agree with just about all of your criticisms of it, tenia—disjointed with a lack of developed characters who interact in ways that serve the story. The biggest flaws, I thought, had to do with the central character, who I understand was inspired by Linklater's personal experience but that didn't seem to come across. I just watched this film, but if I had to tell someone about the character's personality, I'd be able to come up with very little. (Who is it again? Jake? Blake something? Almost a blank void in the film for me.)
From the opening of the film to practically the very end, the camera kind of leers at all female characters with an air of "Wow, are our boys about to get laid?" and Jake seems to go for the girl just because she's the first attractive thing who came along and she made the first move. By the time they have some well-written conversations in the final portion of the film, it was already too late for me. That split-screen phone conversation had a keystone place in the film but was fairly weak, and all it seems to accomplish is that they tentatively connect with each other and she asks him out. They first meet near the beginning of the film but that plotline doesn't come back until inside the second hour of the film, so it seemed like a pacing problem as well.

Wyatt Russell was good, but his character was too much of a two-dimensional stoner caricature in the Pink Floyd "language is just a construct/telepathy" scene* and we only find out anything about who he really is after he leaves. I found the most interesting character by far to be Finnegan, but he was underused and diminished essentially to the running bit about the psychology of his pickup technique, which I did like. McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) is there throughout the whole story and most of its interactions, but who cares? I love most of Linklater's other work but don't think I'll go back to this one.

*Almost any choice other than Floyd or the Dead would've been better there, but credit where it's due, the music selections throughout were one of the best things about this movie (after the unconvincing "Rapper's Delight" sequence)—even the songs placed in the soundtrack for a matter of seconds added something vitally interesting to the film and made it worth seeing once.

[Black Hat]

What Linklater's very good at doing is hiding how he really feels much like in the way Rohmer would while having a firm understanding of how a certain kind of person wants to feel and he gives them want they want. In EWS! he leave outs all of the honey coated romantic nostalgia brought on by the contrived 'realism' which permeates throughout his films. The film's title I think is an allusion to this because for the first time in his career Linklater has given his audience something truly personal, a bit of emotional honesty. This is why I feel this was Linklater's best film by a wide margin, but not surprised at all by how some are not as enthusiastic.

I just watched it, and probably was I expecting too much from it (loving Dazed & Confused) and ended up being, in the end, relatively disappointed by it.

Everybody feels too repetitive, with characters not different enough from one another.

I get the point about trying to hit every type of characters Linklater probably met when he was in college, but this Jay Niles guy ? The movie probably could have done without him.

Well I think where people are misstepping with this film is by comparing it to Dazed & Confused which thanks to the film's marketing couldn't be avoided. Dazed was a stylized nostalgia ridden high school comedy where as EWS! is a highly personal dramatization of Linklater's college experience. When you say the 'characters weren't individualized enough for me' you have to remember these characters exist within the confines of a sports team where all individuality is weeded out especially at the college level. Jay Niles is annoying, but every baseball team has at least one pitcher who is batshit crazy in exactly the same way he is.

The biggest flaws, I thought, had to do with the central character, who I understand was inspired by Linklater's personal experience but that didn't seem to come across. I just watched this film, but if I had to tell someone about the character's personality, I'd be able to come up with very little. (Who is it again? Jake? Blake something? Almost a blank void in the film for me.)

Your parenthetical is precisely the point of his character. As a 18 year old college freshman there because he has a freakish ability to throw a baseball Jake was a blank canvas. Nobody has an interest in him beyond how well he pitches. This is why the girl being an artist was important because exposure to her world was what helped give him an identity and in real life led Linklater down the path of filmmaking.

From the opening of the film to practically the very end, the camera kind of leers at all female characters with an air of "Wow, are our boys about to get laid?" and Jake seems to go for the girl just because she's the first attractive thing who came along and she made the first move.

It certainly does and was intentional as that's how being on a sports team on a college campus is like. You also have to remember that most athletes because of all the time devoted to their sports i.e. away from most of their peers are incredibly awkward socially thus all the emphasis on drinking and being rowdy. Did she make the first move? I seem to remember him pursuing her, but could be wrong. Either way he went for her because she represented an escape from a world he began to see himself no longer fitting in with.

[Gregory]

Comparisons to Dazed and Confused couldn't have been avoided regardless of marketing. There are some key similarities. The characters may have had certain kinds of individuality smoothed out of them on the team, but the film isn't really about the team dynamics on the field but about how they try to assert themselves and interact as individuals in college/communal-house life before training begins. It seemed clear to me that they are all meant to be distinct, individual characters. The film establishes this pretty well, but not in ways that fit into a cohesive whole.
I'm unconvinced that being a forgettable blank was "precisely the point" of Jake's character, or that he had a "freakish ability to throw a baseball." "Nobody has an interest in him beyond how well he pitches"? Sure they do, as issues aside from pitching ability revolve around the character throughout the film. The problem is those issues don't lead anywhere with any purpose. The film suggests nothing to me about what could have led Linklater to an interest in filmmaking, and I've seen every other film he's made with the exception of Bad News Bears. The experience of what it's like to be a college athlete differs from person to person, and it's not really a reason for cinematography that reduces all women to interchangeable potential conquests/pickups. The camera gives "special" attention to several women early on, and then the viewer doesn't find out until the second half that only one of them (Beverly) matters, and even the relationship between her and the main character is badly developed.
And yes, Beverly made the first move by saying she liked Jake as he sat in the back saying nothing, which led to one of the major narrative questions being set up as whether there was anything really going on between them or she was just using him to insult the upperclassmen in the front seat who hit on her, a not-very-interesting question that later suddenly falls away, leaving little time or interest in developing the relationship between the couple in interesting terms. Every scene with Jake and Beverly lacked something in the writing area, and I was looking to that as the most personal part of the film that would provide something above and beyond the "drinking and being rowdy" aspects. The film positions it as being major in the second half but doesn't develop it well in the first.
I didn't get that he was attracted to her as an escape from baseball, as he's just showed up to become part of the team and his fitting into that seems to be the whole point of the film, not his trying to get away from it. Those two plotlines don't mesh well with each other, and the character was dull and overly passive in both of them.

[Black Hat]

Comparisons to Dazed and Confused couldn't have been avoided regardless of marketing. There are some key similarities.

I'm not sure what you mean by key similarities like what? Being young, the music, male protagonist? I don't see those if that's what you're referring to as key.

The characters may have had certain kinds of individuality smoothed out of them on the team, but the film isn't really about the team dynamics on the field but about how they try to assert themselves and interact as individuals in college/communal-house life before training begins. It seemed clear to me that they are all meant to be distinct, individual characters. The film establishes this pretty well, but not in ways that fit into a cohesive whole

You have me confused you agreed with tenia's critique that the characters weren't 'individualized enough', but say here the film established this well. What I'm not clear on is what you mean when you say it doesn't 'fit into a cohesive whole'? What wasn't cohesive about the story? How was it fragmented?

I'm unconvinced that being a forgettable blank was "precisely the point" of Jake's character, or that he had a "freakish ability to throw a baseball." "Nobody has an interest in him beyond how well he pitches"? Sure they do, as issues aside from pitching ability revolve around the character throughout the film. The problem is those issues don't lead anywhere with any purpose.

I never said Jake was forgettable. What you can't dispute is he's at that college on scholarship because he can throw a baseball, he has his social circle because he can throw a baseball. Who else besides Beverly shows an interest in him? Also you seem to undercut your argument when you say the 'problem is those issues don't lead anywhere' as to me the surface level relationships with his teammates was what Linklater was trying to show.

The film suggests nothing to me about what could have led Linklater to an interest in filmmaking.

He was very interested in attending her play and everything that had to do with her being a theater. He was even keen on participating. I'm not sure how much more you'd need to make the connection.

The camera gives "special" attention to several women early on, and then the viewer doesn't find out until the second half that only one of them (Beverly) matters, and even the relationship between her and the main character is badly developed.
And yes, Beverly made the first move by saying she liked Jake as he sat in the back saying nothing, which led to one of the major narrative questions being set up as whether there was anything really going on between them or she was just using him to insult the upperclassmen in the front seat who hit on her, a not-very-interesting question that later suddenly falls away, leaving little time or interest in developing the relationship between the couple in interesting terms.
I didn't get that he was attracted to her as an escape from baseball, as he's just showed up to become part of the team and his fitting into that seems to be the whole point of the film, not his trying to get away from it. Those two plotlines don't mesh well with each other, and the character was dull and overly passive in both of them.

Hmm, I can almost agree with you that the relationship was badly developed were it not for remembering what the first few days of college were like. How they got together rang very true of how a boy & girl meet right after they move into school and become bf & gf.

And yes, Beverly made the first move by saying she liked Jake as he sat in the back saying nothing, which led to one of the major narrative questions being set up as whether there was anything really going on between them or she was just using him to insult the upperclassmen in the front seat who hit on her, a not-very-interesting question that later suddenly falls away, leaving little time or interest in developing the relationship between the couple in interesting terms./quote] I thought that's what you meant by 'move', but that's not a move in my opinion. It's a little flirting or as you said yourself using him to clown the others. The 'move' was him finding her afterwards.

I didn't get that he was attracted to her as an escape from baseball, as he's just showed up to become part of the team and his fitting into that seems to be the whole point of the film, not his trying to get away from it. Those two plotlines don't mesh well with each other, and the character was dull and overly passive in both of them.

The point of the film is what those first fews days are like before classes start your freshman year of college. Not just an escape from baseball, but an escape from being unsure, scared and all the anxiety brought on from being away from home for the first time.

[Gregory]

The commonalities with Dazed and Confused run so deep I'd have to write a lot to get at them. I don't mean just the youth ensemble cast, uses of music in different ways in the soundtrack, or a male protagonist but many other things that overlap including the settings of short time spans either just as classes end or just as they're about to begin, the sudden interactions, hazing rituals, skirting of rules and regulations to find spaces where the characters interact and define themselves on uncertain footing within these similar types of groupings, both based on Linklater's experiences, and both I think being told with elements of the horror genre.

The characters were meant to have individual character arcs, but these weren't developed fully and cohesively enough, as I've tried to explain using several specific examples and how they were developed not enough, or enough but in a way that felt trivial, or too little too late.
Who else besides Beverly shows an interest in Jake? Many of his teammates do. Not sure why I should need to summarize them, as it's all in the film, but

He was very interested in attending her play and everything that had to do with her being a theater. He was even keen on participating. I'm not sure how much more you'd need to make the connection.

I just didn't buy it, partly for reasons I explained about how she just falls into his lap as an attractive and available coed, and by the time the relationship is fleshed out in the final phase of the film, it's already been sidelined by many other events that make up the bulk of the central part of the film. And it's partly because I just didn't buy, or was unmoved by, the actors playing the couple and what was written for them, and again I've given examples of that already, such as the key split-screen phone conversation, which tries to revive that storyline about midway through the film but doesn't establish much in that story arc, over an hour into the film, except: potential hookup for our pretty dull main character.
The theater party scene didn't do too much for me, perhaps because the main characters again just seemed to be going into any situation where they might be able to score as if they can be chameleon-like—as the film is totally explicit about their motivation during the scene when they go to the punk club—but usually just succeeding in disrupting and misfitting. The film focuses so much time and attention on chasing tail that it's hard to have a lot of emphasis left at the end on Jake's discovery of the arts, which are downplayed to the extreme. It seems like this one fell between the two stools of Linklater's crowdpleasers and his personal films, or between the ensemble film and one that creates a dynamic between a couple.

[swo17]

I kind of liked it but my wife says I ruined this movie for her when I observed that every male character here is playing one shade or another of McConaughey.

[tenia]

Did she make the first move? I seem to remember him pursuing her, but could be wrong. Either way he went for her because she represented an escape from a world he began to see himself no longer fitting in with.

She says she finds him cute, both because she does but also to annoy his friends by prefering the new guy to them.
Unfortunately, while you're probably right on the subtext, the movie just doesn't play this card well enough to me. In the end, he goes for the 307 girl simply because she's the only one who has been vaguely paying attention to him. In the end, he's lucky she might represent an escape from a world he doesn't seem to fit into, but he's not going to her because of that. It's just that he saw she might like him, so he goes to her. It's very basic.

I kind of liked it but my wife says I ruined this movie for her when I observed that every male character here is playing one shade or another of McConaughey.

Exactly. In D&C, McConaughey would get all this to himself, letting the other characters be someone else, someone very different. In EWS, they're not. In some way, they're all the same.

the main characters again just seemed to be going into any situation where they might be able to score as if they can be chameleon-like—as the film is totally explicit about their motivation during the scene when they go to the punk club—but usually just succeeding in disrupting and misfitting.

Exactly. There isn't any specificities, any variations. The movie is exactly and explicitly limiting, including for the main character : whatever happens, whatever they do : it's to get laid.