Film Review: Everybody Wants Some!! (MA15+) (USA, 2016)

Dubbed the “spiritual predecessor” to his classic film Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklater’s new film Everybody Wants Some!! takes us from the 70s to the 80s, and from the last days of high school to the first days of college in Texas. Much like in Dazed, we meet a group of young people about to embark on a new chapter of their lives. And where as Dazed may have involved the football players, in Everybody our group of College students are the school’s baseball players, ready to begin training for the first games of the season, ahead of the first days of school.

The film stars Blake Jenner as Jake, a college freshman and Baseball pitcher who arrives at his new school, moving straight into the player’s reasonably dilapidated house. There, we meet a mix of players, some of whom have been at the school for a while, alongside other fellow freshman. To name just a few, there’s Kenny (Ryan Guzman), Glen (Tyler Hoechlin), Finnegan (Glen Powell), Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), Coma (Forrest Vickery) and “Beuter” (Will Brittain). And, as in any film focusing on characters of this age, they’re all looking to score – both on the field and off.

Yes, there are plenty of traditional College movie tropes in here. We have our main characters disobey the rules of the house within what must have been hours (that being no alcohol in the house, nor girls brought into their rooms upstairs). The team “hit the town” regularly and some score and some don’t, and the same happens when they party at home. But Jake finds himself crushing pretty hard on Beverly (Zoey Deutch), and proceeds to chase her alongside everything else he’s getting up to – whether it’s going into his first day of training, hanging with his Punk mate Justin (Michael Monsour) or struggling to get along with fellow freshman “Beuter”.

In capturing just a few days across the fall of 1980, Richard Linklater has perfected the College movie, bringing together humour and heart with a mix of the expected and unexpected. It’s hard not to enjoy every minute of the two hour film, with every actor delivering a phenomenal performance, bouyed by typically great direction from Linklater and his fantastic script. But this is more than a great College movie – it’s a great romantic story, between Beverly and Jake, it’s a great look at life in the 1980s, with all the emerging artistic sub-cultures, and it’s even a great sports film, despite the fact the team never actually play a game.

And like some of John Hughes’ best works, it’s also timeless – not to mention without borders. It’s endlessly relatable for anyone watching the film, from anywhere in the world. Linklater targets every aspect of that time of your life and manages to hit the bulls eye with every note. Speaking of notes, it’s also one of the best soundtracks you’ll find in a film this year, with Foreigner, Van Halen, Blondie, The Cars, Devo and much more scattered throughout.

Arguably director Richard Linklater’s most unadulterated and enjoyable productions ever, fans of Dazed and Confused will not be disappointed by Everybody Wants Some!!, and in many ways he has surpassed his spiritual predecessor. This comes thanks to greater studio support, a fantastic, mostly unknown, cast and a more focused script. Both a great college film that puts it alongside the likes of Animal House, and a surprisingly good sports film, embedding us in the first days of training for the College Baseball season, no matter how you swing it, Everybody Wants Some!! is a perfect film. It’s destined to be a classic of the genre.

Review Score: FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)

Everybody Wants Some!! screens in select Australian cinemas from this Thursday, June 23rd. Parts of this review were originally published following screenings at SXSW 2016. The film also screened as part of the Sydney Film Festival.

Check out our exclusive interviews with the cast of the film, as well as Director Richard Linklater, HERE.

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Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.