Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Quick Impressions:
Neighbors opened this weekend, and that’s why we saw it. I usually like Seth Rogen (although the posters for Knocked Up really annoyed me at the time). I have nothing against Zac Efron. And I always have fun going to the theater to see R-rated comedies because now that I have a five-year-old daughter, I don’t often get to watch those at home.
After seeing Neighbors, I’ve decided that the Oscars need to add one more award—Best Baby in a Motion Picture.
Forget Zac Efron. The baby they found to play Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’s daughter is the cutest thing ever put on screen! All through the movie, her conspicuous adorableness distracted me. I found myself thinking, “Who is their baby? And who is their baby wrangler?” (That’s probably not what they call it.) “How are they getting reactions like this from this baby?”
For a while, I wondered if she were director Nicholas Stoller’s own baby because she just looked so thrilled to be there, so relaxed, so natural, and so happy, oh so, so happy.
Actually, the delightful Stella is played by twins, Elise and Zoey Vargas. I haven’t seen a baby this animated on screen since Elora Danan in Willow (also played by twins). Seriously if this movie is any indication, Elise and Zoey Vargas have a huge future on the silver screen. They give such an amazing performance. (I’d really love to know how the filmmakers are coaxing such great reactions. Maybe they caught them at just the right age. There were a couple of months when my own daughter was non-stop enormous grins just about 24/7.)
Not only is the baby cute, but they make unusually good use of her cuteness. In the opening scene, her persistent grins at Seth Rogen are so realistic and so thoroughly charming.
The only unrealistic thing about Stella is how well she sleeps through the night. Now I’m not saying my own daughter never slept through the night as an infant. I’m just saying that I’m positive if I nipped next door to get high with some frat boys, my daughter would have woken up immediately. Babies have some kind of automatic timer that wakes them. It activates the moment you need them to be asleep.
Now if you’re not obsessed with cute babies, is Neighbors worth seeing? Is it funny? Sort of. It’s a pretty painless way to kill an hour and a half. The love story between Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne is surprisingly sweet and realistic for a movie about a comedic war with frat boys. And though the whole thing is not laugh out loud funny, there are some high points that really made the audience laugh. Rogen and Efron’s final showdown is genuinely inventive and lots of fun.
The Good:
Seth Rogen and Zac Efron have surprising chemistry. I could sit and listen to them Batman each other back and forth all night—well, as long as I’m at a theater where they serve alcohol. I wasn’t drinking while watching this movie, but an all-night Batman riff would surely pair better with a margarita. (I was going to say “pair better with a nice merlot,” which would make a superior sentence, but why drink merlot if I can have a margarita? When I get drunk in my imagination, taste always trumps style.)
The idea of watching an extended version of the Batman debate while knocking back margaritas is not entirely unappealing. During parts of this movie, you feel like you’re dropping in on somebody’s party yourself, maybe just sitting in a corner by a fire pit and observing all the fun. (Clearly I love to do things vicariously. I imagine I’m getting drunk and imagining being at somebody else’s party. I’m surprised I’m even in this paragraph at all.)
Anyway, the movie has some very funny moments and a pretty winning cast. I always love Dave Franco. I don’t know why. I just really like him, and it’s not just because he’s not James Franco (although that is a pretty great bonus). The younger Franco is charismatic without being pretentious, and though he usually plays the same kind of character again and again, I’m glad to see him every time. (And speaking of being glad to see someone—is he really performing that party trick? It seems like something that would have to be faked in order to get an R rating, but what do I know?)
Rose Byrne also has a great part in this movie. As you might expect in a movie centered on a frat house, Neighbors does not feature many fleshed out female characters. But as Seth Rogen’s wife (I swear they hardly ever say their characters’ names, which are allegedly Mac and Kelly), Rose Byrne is an equal partner who gets just as much screentime, character development, and initiative as Rogen or Efron.
I think Byrne is very talented. I remember when I first became aware of her after seeing Get Him to the Greek, X-Men: First Class, and Bridesmaids in very quick succession. Wow! I thought at the time. This has got to be the most versatile woman on the face of the earth! Tonight my husband agreed and said, “She’s like the female Gary Oldman.” Of course, I’ve never seen a movie where Gary Oldman has a scene like the one an uncomfortable Byrne has with a panicking Rogen in the nursery.
Best Robert De Niro Cameo Not Featuring Robert De Niro:
I think Robert De Niro’s great because he’s an immensely talented actor who also has a sense of humor. Now maybe he loves appearing in dumb comedies a little too much or maybe not. That’s not for me to say. But he does have a habit of appearing in silly comedies whether in a starring role, a supporting part, or even a cameo. Some of these parts are good for him, others not so much.
But they really make excellent use of De Niro here, and he’s not even actually in the movie. There’s a scene when a group of De Niros (really costumed frat boys) gather outside Seth Rogen’s window to mock him. (Jerrod Carmichael’s Garf is pretty hilarious in this scene, too, and he’s not even doing De Niro. He’s even better later in a hilarious scene with the cop, played by Hannibal Buress.)
My point is, Dave Franco’s De Niro costume seems to foreshadow a scene with Rose Byrne that I might not have liked when I was younger but at this age found relatable and hilarious.
Best Scene Visually:
Zac Efron shirtless is probably this movie’s most memorable visual and greatest visual asset. Efron and Rogen’s final scene together plays off this beautifully. I’m sure it’s great to look like Zac Efron, but it’s even better if you can laugh about it.
Honestly, I also like the scene with the frat party goers pressed up against the windows and laughing derisively at the neighbors’ intimate moment on the couch since this seems emblematic of the entire movie.
The dance-off/bro-sabotage scene is also pretty arresting since the loud confusion of the party means the visuals must do all the work in this sequence. The earnest dance moves of Rogen and Efron are pretty amusing, and it’s hard to look away from Rose Byrne.
Funniest Scene:
I think this depends on whether you’re a parent. I say this because for me, the absolute funniest scene in the movie came near the beginning when they’re trying to pack up to go to the rave. Wow, this really resonated with me (and my husband), but before I had a baby, I don’t think I would have found it nearly as funny. Before I could relate, the joke would have been wasted on me, to be honest.
But at this stage of life, it really hit home. My daughter was premature and spent her first three months in the NICU, so once we brought her home, we were hyper-cautious and literally (literally!) did not take her anywhere for three months! And then where did we go for her first outing? To a haunted catfish restaurant 150 miles from our house for dinner, and then a further 700 miles to my cousins’ house in another state.
For a first outing, this was so ridiculously ambitious. Also we waited until early that morning to pack and then tried to cram everything—everything! Including her entire wardrobe, her baby swing, her bouncer, and even her bathtub!—into the trunk of our Toyota Camry along with our luggage. To make matters more ridiculous, it was a Camry hybrid, so the battery took up most of the trunk space. We started packing the car at 7:00 that morning. By the time we had finished, picked up my stepson, come back to our house for an emergency diaper/onesie change, and finally left again, it was 4:00 in the afternoon!
So this early scene rang really true for me and cracked me up completely, but I doubt it would amuse non-parents quite as much.
My husband and I also chuckled knowingly when Seth Rogen worried about what the baby’s first word might be. I remember once my daughter thought “ergonomic keyboard” was profanity simply because she heard me saying it.
Best Action Sequence/Best Scene:
Maybe I was thinking this way because the movie was about a frat house, and I used to be an English TA tasked with keeping a vigilant eye out for plagiarism, but as I watched the epic mano-a-mano showdown between Efron and Rogen, I couldn’t help but notice that it fit the movie so well. It was so grounded in elements specific to Neighbors. It wasn’t just some generic fight scene that could have been copied and pasted from another movie.
Granted in the end, mano-a-mano isn’t really the most anatomically apt description for their particular smackdown. Another phrase springs immediately to mind, but if I use it, I’ll spoil the surprise. (It’s really not much of a surprise. What kind of duel would you expect between Seth Rogen and Zac Efron in a frat house?)
Because of how perfectly this scene finishes off the film—and also for its general sense of off-kilter fun—I enjoyed this more than most onscreen fights. It’s dumb, but it’s far from lazy.
The Negatives:
You know what’s not funny? If I had been that baby’s parents rushing her to the hospital in panic, I would have come home as angry as Seth Rogen’s character. But if I’d been that wife, I would not have told him he was out of line. I would have recited some terrifying, melodramatic speech from Game of Thrones (which they had earlier mentioned watching), and then stormed over the fence and enacted some sort of Game of Thrones style vengeance.
Now the frat guys seemed to like the baby, so I don’t think they would have actively tried to harm her. But I do think they were deliberately trying to psych out the parents. I think if those boys knew more about new mothers, they would think twice before trying to get under the neighbors’ skin that way.
The very last prank Efron plays on the neighbors is also a terrible idea. It’s far too dangerous, and someone could be seriously hurt. Given that Rogen’s character finds his little valentine first, it all works out (and it does make everybody laugh). But what if the wife had decided to nurse the baby in an inopportune spot? I realize the movie’s a comedy, but stuff like this made me a little too anxious.
There are too many moments in this movie that feel a little too true to be funny. I mean, some of the frat’s antics are outrageous—but they never feel much like something that couldn’t happen in real life. Juvenile humor is fine. But mean-spirited juvenile humor is something else.
Zac Efron’s Teddy is a really problematic character for me. Obviously, the movie wants us to come to understand that he’s immature and frightened about his future. But Teddy should be frightened about his future, and he’s not just immature. Sometimes he’s out and out vicious. He’s calculating from scene one. (That’s another thing I don’t understand, though. Why are Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne so gullible? They should be able to see what they’re dealing with from the outset.) Teddy is always thinking of his own advantage (which is normal, but he sometimes seems almost sociopathic about it). He’s unusually aggressive in persecuting the people next door (which was clearly his plan from the beginning). He’s also shockingly dumb for somebody so conniving. He’s smart enough to realize that he’s twenty-two with a great body, but not smart enough to understand that he won’t be tweny-two with a great body forever. There’s something both attractive and appalling about the character. More than anything, I think, he’s kind of a sad figure.
What makes me the saddest, though, is the realization that Zac Efron keeps playing characters like this. Twice this year already, I’ve seen him play the same character, an emotionally stunted hot guy who thinks he’s awesome and doesn’t know how to grow up. Will Zac Efron ever get to grow up? What happens when he’s forty? I don’t know whether to hope he stays in shape or to hope he lets himself go and turns into Mickey Rourke or something. The thing is, I don’t know how much actual acting talent Efron has. I know he can sing and dance, and he’s got a ton of charisma. Surely he deserves better roles than the one he’s being given. If not (if he’s incapable of doing better work), then he sure better make a lot more movies fast, so he has something to live on once his pecs start to sag. (Is that a thing guys worry about? It sounds depressing, right?)
Efron will turn 27 this fall, but he’s always either playing really young guys with arrested development or getting peed on by Nicole Kidman in more “serious” films that no one ever sees. Maybe he should audition for some of these million and one Star Wars spin-offs we keep hearing are in the works. He needs to play a different kind of character in a mainstream movie. Why is he always a dumb, immature selfish guy with a handsome face and a great body? Couldn’t he at least occasionally be a smart, motivated, kind guy with a handsome face and a great body? I highly doubt that all attractive young men are at best vapid, at worst vicious. At least Efron has the good sense to make fun of himself, and he does have a flair for comedy, so maybe this is a step in the right direction. But I still think he needs to go several steps farther and take on some more diverse roles. If he’s being typecast against his will, that’s even sadder somehow.
Efron just mystifies me, I guess. He’s clearly valued mainly for his built body and cute face, but what’s weird is that this somehow makes him seem less masculine. I can’t think of anybody who seems less manly than Zach Efron, including Mary Martin playing Peter Pan. And isn’t that really weird? I mean, he’s treated as a sex object, and yet, he doesn’t seem very representative of that sex. Maybe he’s happy with the way his career is going, but he shouldn’t be. He’s sort of like a male Marilyn Monroe or something. Nobody takes him seriously. I realize he’s probably rich and happy, but I just can’t help feeling really sorry for him. Looking at him makes me sad. (Clearly the real problem is that I’m insane.)
And speaking of an actor who needs desperately to challenge himself with some different types of roles, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is also in this movie. For another twenty years or so, Efron will be able to take off his shirt and get a job like he does at the end of the movie, but I think the clock is ticking a lot faster for Mintz-Plasse. He can’t be McLovin’ forever. I really like the guy, but he needs to take some parts that challenge him as an actor before audiences get sick of seeing him.
At least Seth Rogen is happy, I guess. Rogen seems like the mellowest dude around, totally content with everything in his life and loving who he is. Admittedly, he’s another one who always plays variations of a single character, but I don’t think he’s in any danger of outgrowing his persona. That’s the difference. Rogen can probably make the same kinds of movies for the rest of his life and continue to be successful.
As a movie about a couple of new parents who don’t feel quite ready to grow into old boring people, Neighbors works just fine. I personally would be very nervous about spending hours getting high at a crazy frat party while my baby is sleeping next door, but they seem to be working out their problems, and at the end, they seem pretty happy together. I both believed and enjoyed their relationship as it unfolded onscreen.
The stuff about the fraternity is more problematic (and less funny) for me. The problem with excess is that it’s fun and fun and more fun and awesome and more awesome and even more fun and awesome…and then somebody’s dead. In real life, fraternities have a kind of disturbing quality. They can be a really positive part of people’s lives, and it’s true that a lot of the dark stuff is greatly exaggerated by the media. But there’s enough truly disturbing stuff to give one pause. This movie’s moral seems to be, “You have to grow up. You can’t behave like an amoral hedonistic maniac when you’re thirty! That’s how you’re supposed to behave when you’re twenty!”
When you think about it, our society is kind of weird. Apparently it’s perfectly acceptable to stick your penis in another guy’s mouth when you think he’s asleep if it’s all in good fun, and you’re just hazing him so he can later get infinite blow jobs. I guess all guys know this somehow. They know this is okay, but they also know exactly where to draw the line. They must find out by reading between the lines of William Faulkner stories and becoming a man by the end because no one has ever explained it to me. I try to understand. I really do. But I think that if somebody affectionately nicknamed me “ass juice” and used my unwittingly open mouth as a penis holder, I would probably not laugh about it as much as they expected. So this is probably why I was never invited to join a fraternity (except I was because as I just remembered while writing this sentence, I’m in phi beta kappa).
(By the way, while we’re on the subject of weird, it’s odd that the “college-aged” frat guys in this movie are being played by actors too old to be traditional undergrads. They’re practically the same age as the old people next door. It’s like we’re getting a preview of 22 Jump Street.)
Don’t get me wrong, though. This particular fraternity doesn’t do anything so unconscionably horrible onscreen. It’s not that the movie’s lack of a moral center is a problem for me. (In fact, the movie has a moral center, and the love story of the young parents is actually very sweet and realistic.) It’s that some of these things that are supposed to be so funny just aren’t funny enough, and it’s usually because they’re too realistic. So you think either, “That’s not outrageous! That happens every day!” or you think, “Wow, frat boys can be so awful!” or, “This seems like a bad idea.” But it’s all kind of banal and annoying instead of being hilarious. Some scenes are great, but there are too many that don’t have enough energy and power. Neighbors is not unpleasant (except when it is), but it’s not exactly laugh-a-minute hilarious, either.
Overall:
Neighbors is funny enough to be the funniest new release out right now, so if you’re impatient, and you’re dying to laugh, this is definitely the movie for you. This week. Hurry, though. After this, from now until July, expect at least two movies a weekend that everyone will be dying to see. So if you don’t see Neighbors now, you might not want to see it later. And that’s a shame because you’ll miss out on several genuinely funny (and sometimes surprisingly touching) moments, an inspired final fight scene, and the cutest baby ever captured on film!