Resurrecting the age-transplant movies of the late ’80s (18
Again, Big, Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son),
17 Again hits every obvious beat. Yet it’s still a giant
miscalculation. The real template is Back to the Future, which
director Burr Steers tries to pitch in reverse. Dissatisfied
37-year-old Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) has his wish granted to
return to his teenage glory years. He wakes up as 17-year-old Zac
Efron, and enrolls at high school. Marty McFly got to help his teenage
parents; Mike shows his teenage children the ropes. This reversal
leaves 17 Again stuck viewing adolescence from an adult
hindsight. It’s a patronizing approach to a teen movie—scene after
scene of a grown-up Zac Efron teaching his inexperienced classmates
life lessons. It takes three-quarters of the movie for the anticipated
moment when Mike’s daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) falls for
him, and then the situation and her emotions are conveniently swept
under the rug. Rather than take the material anywhere interesting, it’s
reduced to thematically disconnected sayings like, “When you’re young
everything feels like the end of the world, but it’s not.” Every kid
will roll their eyes at that condescension.
17 Again hasn’t the heightened thrill of young experience in
Adventureland, Twilight, Roll Bounce, The
Wackness and Hairspray. By viewing teenage plight as
trivial, so is the movie.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.
