When the movie catches up with him 10 years later, Andrew is a newly minted college grad who’s so invested in everyone else’s lives that he hasn’t given any thought to what he might do with his own. Tweenage Andrew won’t get to save the twentysomething party starter he meets that fateful night (we’ve had “Licorice Pizza” discourse for one lifetime, thank you very much), but consciously or not, he’ll always carry her in his heart. Solving our own shit can be so complicated that most of us give up along the way, but recognizing what another person needs from the world, even if just in that moment, can be so obvious that it makes you feel like you have X-ray vision. That the party starter is able to compartmentalize her pain in order to lift everyone else’s spirits only leaves Andrew all the more enchanted. As the child of a bipolar mom (a wonderful but somewhat underutilized Leslie Mann) whose instability will soon prove too much for her husband, Andrew feels a nascent calling to protect older women from a world that’s happy to leave them behind at the first inconvenience. They were extremely formative events for the character he plays here, who we first meet as a 12-year-old who falls in love with one of the party starters hired to whip up a Hora so frenzied that your bubby and zayde seem like they’re about to light the Wicker Man on fire.Īndrew’s sequined crush is perfectly cute, but it’s not her looks that inspire our little man-in-training, it’s that he spies her having a very serious phone call on a break before returning to the dance floor with a professional smile on her face as if nothing had happened. In this case, it’s a shout out to DJ Casper’s 2000 party anthem “Cha Cha Slide,” a staple at the bar and bat mitzvahs that even goys like Raiff were forced to attend on a weekly basis when they were in junior high. Sundance Film Festival Sets 2024 Key Dates for 40th AnniversaryĪs a fun bonus, Raiff’s second feature even triples down on the proud “Shithouse” tradition of movie titles that are impossible to say out loud without experiencing some mild physical discomfort.

Dave mustaine 2022