Disney’s Prom
NEIRAD enilno edition
Disney’s Prom tells you almost everything you need to know about the movie from the title. Disney’s. Prom. I’m guessing you can already fill in most of the blanks from here, good girl, bad boy, prom night is special, some people have problems, everyone is good looking. It really doesn’t get much deeper thematically. But in the end, that’s sort of the charm, isn’t it? No one wants to see Disney’s Elephant or Disney’s Kids. We all rely on Disney to numb our overwrought minds with their images of utopian high schools, free from any real problems, and populated by plucky bands of inclusive, hard-working adolescents with incredibly white teeth. Prom gives the audience just that, and really, I enjoyed it just fine.
Prom kicks off with the protagonist Nova’s soliloquy extolling the virtues of prom night. “High school happens to everyone,” she claims dreamily, but prom night makes it all worthwhile. The romance, the magic, the chance to be whoever you want to be for just one night (sure…we all know the reason people go to prom is for the existential thrill of it), and of course, the fact that it’s a celebration of all of the student body, provided that body is as toned and clear-skinned as Disney likes it. Seriously though, not everybody is allowed to have a good time in this movie, but we’ll get to that later.
Nova’s little opening monologue basically outlines her character: sharp, optimistic, and downright adorable. Aimee Teegarden plays the overachieving Nova just fine, making her cute as a button rather than an annoyingly overachieving person who rhapsodizes about prom all the time. Nova seems to have it all: good grades, a favorable social position, and an upcoming prom of her dreams, but her happiness is soon crushed by her fellow overachiever Brandon Roberts (Jonathan Keltz), who is too naïve to realize that Nova wants him to ask her to prom. He instead asks her dumbly to “carpool” with him, and then cancels on her so he can have his college interview with Princeton. Who can Nova take now? Enter the school’s resident bad boy Jesse Richter, a long-haired, motorcycle-riding, leather-wearing, class-skipping, back-sassin’ bad seed. Played with appropriate swagger by Thomas McDonnell, who looks like a cross between Johnny Depp and Mike Hutchence (in layman’s terms, “good”), Jesse is an unstable antisocial psychopath…no, wait, sorry, he’s just a misunderstood world-weary guy with a waitress mom, an absent father, and an adorable kid brother, who just needs someone to set him on the right path. The creepy-faced principal plays disciplinary Cupid with Jesse and Nova, by making Jesse help set up prom decorations after they burn down in a freak “prom-ask” incident. Initially the two are frigid to each other, but in an O. Henry-worthy twist, they actually start to like each other…and then maybe even like-like each other. But the question remains, after a dress-trying-on montage and a romantic lunch at the diner: will Jesse have the courage to ask Nova to prom? (Hint: it rhymes with “Wes”).
Nova and Jesse are center-stage in this movie (and they are easily the most likable couple), but that doesn’t mean we don’t get plenty of other storylines. There’s the least interesting one, involving “forever couple” Mei (Yin Chang) and Justin (Jared Kusnitz), whose plans on going to the same college together are shattered when Mei gets into the college of her dreams and decides to go there instead. She has to work up the courage to tell Justin and when she does he accepts it and says they’ll still be together. Great. Moving on, there’s the most annoying storyline, involving sophomore Lucas (Nolan Sotillo) and ridiculously-out-of-his-league girl Simone (Danielle Campbell). This story line is mostly aggravating because of Lucas. Sotillo plays him with such stuttering awkwardness and discomfort that it becomes glaringly obvious that in the real world he wouldn’t have any kind of shot with Simone, easily the best-looking and most charming character in the movie. Equally annoying is Lucas’s wisecracking best friend Corey, (Cameron Monaghan) who mostly hangs out with him because they both share a love of the fictional band Stick Hippo, evidenced by the fact that their only conversation topic is a series of rhetorical questions escalating in absurdity about how great Stick Hippo is (Who’s the best band ever? Who should write the national anthem? Ad nauseum). Linked into this storyline however, is the best character, Tyler, played by the best actor DeVaughn Nixon. He’s the closest thing the movie has to an antagonist, a lacrosse star with an equally popular girlfriend Jordan (Kylie Bunbury), that he’s just fine with two-timing because he wants to be with Simone, and he’s not above brown-nosing Lucas, who’s “friends” with her, to get her. I love a good Machiavellian villain, and Nixon plays the part well, telling lies with such charming confidence that one really gets a sense of his emotionally manipulative nature. Unfortunately, he’s denied a happy ending, when both girls leave him in an awkward scene at the end (and guess who Simone chooses to be with instead).
Then there’s the silly storyline revolving around Rolo (Joe Adler) and his mysterious prom date that may or may not be real. Rolo is really a testament to how difficult it must have been for Disney to write PG versions of almost every high school stereotype. Rolo is never explicitly called a “stoner,” but there’s no way Disney wrote this space cadet character and didn’t think once that he acts more than a little bit like a guy under the influence. And last but not least, there’s Lloyd (Nicholas Braun). Lloyd is a typical “only in the movies” nerd, a guy who is funnier and more easily charming than any realistic social outcast ever would be in real life. He spends the whole movie looking for a prom date, and of course, shenanigans ensue, like the oft-played clip of his prom sign over the highway being ripped down by a truck. Funny thing is, when I first went into Prom I had one prediction: that Lloyd was going to ask an out-of-his-league pretty girl and everyone was going to be surprised when she said yes. However, no such happy ending awaits Lloyd. Lloyd gets slammed with some pretty non-wacky rejections, and bizarrely hard-hitting lines like, “this [prom] could be your only chance to remind people you even went here.” In the end he does go to prom, and I won’t say who with, but she’s sure not the girl of his dreams and is definitely a platonic date. Lloyd’s story is, for the most part, strangely realistic and depressing, which was a little bit unsettling, but also refreshing in Prom’s thick stew of convenient happy endings.
Prom is in no way a perfect movie. The characters and storylines push the boundaries of predictability, and the movie does feel pretty formulaic and undercooked at times. It suffers from too many plot lines that never really intersect (Magnolia this is not), and they take away from the genuinely interesting stories, like Jesse and Nova’s. Some of the actors are also bland and obnoxious, particularly Nolan Sotillo. And of course, the overbearingly innocent Prom is one of the least accurate depictions of high school ever made. However, it’s also strangely good in a lot of ways too. The soundtrack for instance, is not as one might think, populated by inspirational Katy Perry songs, but rather by indie slow-burners like The Naked and Famous’s “Young Blood” and Passion Pit’s cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams.” The cinematography is really pretty quality stuff, presenting very dreamy sun-drenched backdrops for the characters to run around in. And I have to hand it to Disney for the casually multiracial cast; something really has to be said for their progressive choices here. The actors too, though not given the greatest dramatic opportunities, show a lot of promise, particularly Teegarden and McDonnell. It wouldn’t be too surprising if one day in the future, Prom’s greatest legacy is that it was the jumping-off point for several virtual unknowns into stardom. And you know, there’s something to be said for a good happy cliché-fest like this one. Prom is easy to poke fun at, but really, you can’t hate this movie, even if you really want to. Like a five-year-old who tells you he’s Superman, Prom is pretty ignorant to the truth about things, but what kind of sicko is going to get angry at it and tell it off?
I can’t help comparing the movie version of my own prom experience. No, they were really not anything alike. The real prom was certainly not as important or life-affirming as the film’s version, which puts a laughable amount of cosmic significance on it. Real prom can be stressful and awkward for everyone, not just the Lloyds, and no, prom is not a chance to forget who you are and just dance; if anything, the whole affair is designed to make you more self-conscious about how you look, act, and feel about people. That being said, real prom is a lot like Disney Prom in that it really ends up being harmless fun. Nova does have a point about feeling like nothing else matters at prom; as soon as the actual event commences all the prom-a leading up to it seems insignificant. At points, real prom even felt a little bit Disney-esque. I remember showing up to my pre-party and being so awed by how good everyone looked, how happy everyone was, and how care-free the atmosphere seemed. The whole night was totally fun, and watching the sunrise in the early morning by the water with my groggy but blissful prom group…well add some light acoustic background music and a monologue about lasting friendship and you have a scene that really could’ve been penned by Disney. So, if anything, Prom is certainly successful in capturing not the reality, but the spirit of prom: casual, predictable, but still a great time.
