Can't Hardly Wait turns 25. Bonus Cinematic Throwback

Can't Hardly Wait opened one year and one day after I graduated high school. I was one of those weirdos who actually liked high school, so I had nostalgia for that time almost instantly. 

The movies added to this in a big way, since the late 90s and early 2000s had an explosion of high school-set shows and movies. 1998 was not as full of these movies as the following years would be, but we did get one of the very best. 

Can't Hardly Wait was a movie that was on my radar in a big way. I was eagerly awaiting this thing long before release, when it was just called The Party. Why? Jennifer Love Hewitt. In 1998 she was just about the biggest deal there was.

This was just a classic teen movie, the first one of its kind in years (Clueless is kind of its own thing).Throw a big ensemble of young actors together and see what happens. For me, its closest comp in that time was actually Dazed and Confused, another movie set on the last day of school and featuring a crop of budding stars. 

Now, CHW is not D&C. The latter is a top 10 all time film for me and basically perfect. CHW has stuff in it that doesn't work, and lacks D&C's overall substance. CHW is much more of a John Hughes era high school movie, with some very over the top comedy but also a lot of heart. 

So yes, it's the last day of high school. The movie opens with graduation, but then we jump ahead to that night's huge party. (Our huge party was at the school after graduation and looked nothing like this) This movie is a big ensemble but our primaries are all introduced with freeze frames and yearbook-style info. Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Lauren Ambrose, Seth Green, Peter Facinelli and Charlie Korsmo get that treatment. 

The main through line in the movie is that geeky Embry has been in love with Hewitt for 4 years, and she has just been dumped by Facinelli so now maybe he has a shot. Ambrose comes along for moral support. Green, embodying many a stereotype of a pre-Eminem white hip hop kid, is determined to lose his virginity. Korsmo, the resident super geek, is going to get revenge on jock Facinelli for years of bullying. 

And oh boy are there a lot of other familiar faces. I am not sure there has ever been a movie like this with so many actors in it, down to tiny parts, who went on to do other things. Even Dazed had a lot of actors who vanished afterwards. Here there are very few. 

This is the kind of movie where you watch a scene of Green being embarrassed by Paige Moss, only to recall that Moss played a female werewolf later on in Buffy who broke up Oz and Willow, leading to her getting with Tara, played by Amber Benson, who is also here and without a line of dialogue. Experienced Buffy-philes can spot a few other actors who appeared on the show. 

A few actors here weren't totally new. We got Melissa Joan Hart, Jerry O'Connell, both Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer from Clueless, Jenna Elfman. Oh and there's Tamala Jones from Booty Call, and Jaime Pressly from that sleazy Poison Ivy movie. 

But there is also a bunch of then unknown people like Jason Segel and Selma Blair and Sean Patrick Thomas and the Shermanator. Some make no impact here but it's fun to spot them. 

That main group is very good. Facinelli comes off the worst, but gets some funny moments. Embry is suitably likable. Korsmo, who had been a successful child actor and then left acting for a while, steals this whole thing. Green is so fully committed to the bit that he is easy to like. Hewitt is dreamy perfection, managing to inject some actual substance into a character that in most movies would have none. 

But as the years and the rewatches go on, the star is clearly Ambrose. She spends most of the movie firing off sarcastic one-liners, much of it when she is paired up with Green. Almost all of them are funny. But she also has a real character, that is not just comic relief. It seems absurd now that she could be presented as a social outcast. No offense to Hewitt, but she is the true catch of the movie.

The movie has it's comedy and it's slapstick. It does have some comedy that aged poorly, mostly gay jokes. But it also has a lot of heart and has just enough substance in it to not be a trifle.

It didn't do that well. It wasn't a flop, but was a classic cult hit that grew a following. I guess there are some murmurings that a reunion type sequel would maybe happen. I would be all for it. You could probably get just about everybody back.