can't hardly wait * 1/2 written and directed by harry elfont and deborah kaplan . photography , lloyd ahern . editing , michael jablow . production design , marcia hinds-johnson . music , david kitay & matthew sweet . produced by jenno topping and betty thomas . cast : jennifer love hewitt ( amanda ) , ethan embry ( preston ) , charlie korsmo ( william ) , lauren ambrose ( denise ) , peter facinelli ( mike ) , seth green ( kenny ) , jerry o'connell , ( trip mcneely ) , jenna elfman ( angel ) . a columbia pictures release . 95 min . pg-13 high-school kids are human , but you'd hardly think so from a large number of movies about them , including can't hardly wait . it's the first directorial effort by kaplan and elfont whose main claim to fame was being among the five writers of a very brady sequel . a few teen films have been on the thoughtful side : the classic post-graduation american graffiti , the excellent end-of-school-year dazed and confused ( by richard linklater ) , some works by john hughes ( the breakfast club , sixteen candles ) , the funny-to-hilarious fast times at ridgemont high ( by amy heckerling ) , ferris bueller's day off , weird science ( both by hughes ) . note that the hughes titles above were set in illinois , while dazed and confused is in texas . the school of the chw kids is in california , the center of the universe as per hollywood . the sad denial of another america beyond the southern pacific coast continues , obviously for practical filmmaking reasons . the opening credits are a quick , cutesy way to introduce the main characters , their accomplishments , aims , favorite quotes , etc . as a rule this gimmick makes one suspect the worst . one quote is " a true friend stabs you in the front , " attributed to oscar wilde . i cannot guarantee its authenticity , but a search for it turned up a wildeism more germane to the film : " there is no sin , except stupidity . " the film's title must refer to the impatience of the kids to leave adolescence for maturity , as well as to the state of english in schools . following the seniors' graduation ceremony , their class has the usual ritualistic bash--in the home of a girl who ought to have known better than volunteer the place . the party is a rite of passage --not the rites of spring but the trites of spring . the motto , as in other such events , must be brew and screw . for its characters , the filmmakers round up the usual suspects , all of them types found in the teen genre . if there is some originality here , it is well-hidden by cliches gathered from earlier flicks . chw's deja vu types and actions make up a pot-pourri , an expression where " pourri " means " putrid . " but this epithet would be too strong a condemnation of a movie whose main guilt is total superficiality . the action almost entirely takes place at the shindig . celebrants range from geeks to nerds to jocks to cuties . without a central plot or guiding thread , the whole thing is just a collection of skin-deep subplots . the main one is this : athletic mike , the bmoc , has just dumped amanda , his girl since freshman class , as part of " game plan " with his pals . the idea is that those among them who are going on to college will have women by the regiment falling into their arms and beds , so why not break with the boys' current liaisons ? it's not only a dumb idea but a revoltingly cynical one . learning this , college-bound would-be writer preston wants to declare his love to now-uncommitted amanda . he is a likable , shy fellow who has been adoring her silently ever since they both were freshmen . in a flashback to four years ago , the movie goofs by showing amanda , preston and others looking exactly as they do now . add to this the sin that hollywood has been committing since silent movie days and in many contemporary films as well : too many screen students --high-schoolers or undergraduates--are perceptibly older than they would be in real life . preston comes to the party with his confidante and best pal denise . she is brainy a la janeane garofalo , even looks like a mix of garofalo and a young kathy bates . she lacks confidence in her own appearance , is outside the girlish loop , critical of others , has a mordant tongue . another subplot will involve her being accidentally locked inside a bathroom with seth , with predictable consequences . he is a white boy whose solution to having an identity has been to adopt a black personality in dress , speech , manners , music , and the like . ( there are , by the way , some merely token minority students at the party ) as for amanda , she's been a kind of first lady all along , queen of this and of that . she is nice but , like almost everyone else , not a thinking person . ( you wonder how the vague preston will perform as a writer ) amanda does get the film' s main profundity when she realizes ( and confesses a bit pathetically ) that all her glory came from being mike's satellite . with some people , it takes time to see the obvious . i will not mention other characters , events or gratuitous developments of chw . the partygoers , are without exception not just undeveloped but undersketched . there are few small saving graces . one is the movie's relative briefness . even though the title calls for the joke i could hardly wait for it to finish , i did not find it unbearable -- just blah . another is that preston is neither depicted as pathologically shy nor as a caricature intellectual . there are no drop-dead gorgeous women . and , in a near-surreal sight , as preston tries to use a public phone , a woman , a tired stripper with fake angel wings , hassles him for the use of the cabin . she is played by the uncredited jenna elfman , who recently had a major part in krippendorf's tribe and is married to the nephew of composer danny elfman . obviously made for high-schoolers who may or may not get some mini-shocks of recognition , and full of references to current pop culture , chw will survive only if its target audience shows up . " le mauvais gout mene au crime " ( stendhal ) edwin jahiel's movie reviews are at <a href= " http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel " >http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel</a> 
