Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), R, ★★★1/2

A hangout at the bar.

The days or a week before college orchestrates a whole new limelight upon oneself as to far one will go to acquire an education and degree that you would love to pursue and attain for the future. However, it is another opportunity for a person to enter the college world to get acquainted with potential friends and to party it up with communities, fraternities and sororities. It is another slice of life from talented director, Richard Linklater, that mirrors the feelings of warmth and character insight that projects a person to a good path and hallows a flashback to the prime time of adolescence.

Jake Bradford (Blake Jenner) enters the college three days before the start of classes and he enters the baseball house. He meets McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) and Roper (Ryan Guzman) as they both razz Jake for being a pitcher. He proceeds upstairs as he meets more people: Niles (Juston Street), Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), Finnegan (Glen Powell), Dale (J. Quenton Johnson), Plummer (Temple Baker) and hit roommate, Beuter (Will Brittain). They go around campus to invite girls to a party and they drive by named Beverly (Zoey Deutch) and her roommate (Sophia Taylor Ali). Beverly comments on Jake's quiet personality and she likes him.

The team meets with the coach to go over some rules and he mainly states that there is no drinking or girls allowed in the house, which all the guys are confounded about. The guys go to the nightclub and hang out with the girls and most of them take their girls to the rooms except Jake, who takes her to the car. Beuter heads back home for a couple of days as he is worried that he got his girlfriend pregnant. Jake still hangs out with the members to go back to the nightclub and also to the country club where he feels out of place. Willoughby tells him to embrace his "inner weirdness" and be himself.

Let's talk.

This is Linklater's love letter to adolescence and nostalgia for those who have watched Dazed and Confused or lived in '80s in their youth. However, his previous movies, Boyhood and Before Midnight, explored the human condition in both the boy's adolescence & maturity and a more mature couple's relationship. With this movie, it explores the human condition but not as much because it is more of a flashback to the times as they celebrate life that will get them to consume alcohol, smoke drugs and probably have some sex with girls. It explores comedic sense in both the male bonding and the poignant scenes, especially in a few scenes with Jenner and Deutch.

Blake Jenner, unfortunately, gives somewhat of a mannered performance as he is the main character in the movie. However, his presence is a bit uninteresting and a bit predictable as Linklater tries to catch a similar and younger vibe of a relationship between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy from the Before trilogy. Those scenes are poignant and free-spirited but a bit predictable. The supporting characters have personalities all of their own as they are played by other actors - some who are first-timers - and they all have classic interest in which we will remember in the future.

Director Richard Linklater's work flows with such effervescent and clear-crisp dialogue most of the time that it conveys the tone of the 1980s perfectly but somehow even though it highlights their spirit, it does not evoke much emotional depth or story. It highlights a small time in their live before college and become a bit self-indulgent. People will criticize Boyhood for being the same thing but the difference is that all four characters have different stories that it highlights their lives being unpredictable and they have to be involved with each other. There's not much involvement here. But, this is a very good slice of nostalgia despite a reservation from Jenner's performance and lack of emotion. However, this is a teen film with some raunchy dialogue but is asserted with maturity.

***1/2