Still funny, still rude, and unless you are a flannel, guaranteed to make you laugh, the five boys who changed teen history: Finch, Stifler, Jim, Kevin and Oz, are back. With beards.
Few films have had a greater impact on a generation. First released in 1999, American Pie was the naughty video you had to sneak past your parents in Blockbusters amidst more PG appropriates. It brought us MILF, warm apple pie and Nadia the exchange student, along with a string of less funny imitation films. Reunion is the highly anticipated fourth in the franchise, the premise of which – a random thirteen-year high school reunion – is by the by. It’s the moments, the jokes and the pie-quality scenes that make this one golden.
Thirteen years on, Stifler is an office dogsbody and general desk-perv living for the weekend, Jim is still married, well-meaning but characteristically awkward and Finch is a motorbiking traveller with hard-man tattoos, still high on the glory of Stifler’s mum. Kevin still fancies Vicky, Oz still fancies Heather and Jim’s dad and Stifler’s mum are still the unsung heroes of the whole shebang. What starts out as a harmless catch up between old friends descends into pubescent frolics, ice box excrement and the inevitable quest to get the girl. Of course, despite the debauchery, friendship prevails, love conquers and there’s a prom. With every original member of the cast making a witty, referential appearance (Sherminator and MILF proclaimers included), the reunion aspect runs off-screen too.
New writers to the series, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, of Harold and Kumar fame, couldn’t wait to get their hands on it. High school friends themselves, and ultimate AP fans, the pair bounced off each other and consulted the cast on their ideas, which included a transparent saucepan lid incident for Jim, who apparently was more than willing “as long as it was funny”. Eddie Kaye Thomas (Finch) told us, “What’s really fun about Jon and Hayden is the way they giggle and laugh and get off on what’s happening in front of the camera. They’re just making themselves laugh, they’re like ‘Ok Sean, just do this’ and then they start cracking up.”
Last week’s screening at the Odeon in Leicester Square was packed full of groups of friends, each with their own favourite jokes, and as the curtains closed, there was raucous applause, not quite the usual throat clearing and glasses case snap you hear at so many other screenings. American Pie has captured us once again and proved that we too may be thirteen years older, but we’re still as blissfully immature.
American Pie: Reunion will be released on May 2nd in UK cinemas.
Text: Sarah Raphael
