Rick Stevens (even his name sounds fake) is played by Nat Wolff, who was so troubled and interesting in "Palo Alto," and he plays a similar character here. Rick, like Ferris Bueller, talks directly into the camera and narrates his own life, although without Ferris' charm or humor. His face shows no expression as he tells us all of the horrible things that have been happening: his mother attempting suicide, a dead body found in his trunk, etc. The film opens with a shot of his bulging crotch, and his deadpan voice telling us that, on top of everything else, he has crabs. Things go downhill from there.
Rick's mother (Mary Louise Parker) is a falling-down drunk who goes to rehab every April, bottle of vodka stashed in her purse. Rick's older sister Kristen (Ashley Rickards) is a stripper who is applying to Stanford. Rick's father (Cary Elwes) is out of the picture, except when he shows up begging to borrow Rick's video camera for nefarious purposes. Rick, clearly, has some strikes against him in the DNA department.
He is secretly in love with a girl named Nina Pennington (Selena Gomez), who is so pure that she wants to be a priest when she grows up, and spends her free time volunteering. Rick pays strippers for awkward blow-jobs, and then brags about it, and also makes a bet with a kid at school that he can somehow bang Nina.
At the same time as all of this is going on, Rick is also busy losing his virginity to his best friend's mother, Mrs. Bender (poor Elisabeth Shue, whom I wanted to airlift out of her own scenes to safety). Mrs. Bender comes on to Rick the second her son leaves the room, and Rick stammers, "Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Bender?" "The Graduate" did it better.
The set direction is painfully generic, the houses looking uninhabited by real people, and decorated by those who are interested in renting their homes out to porn directors.
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