Everybody Wants Some!!

Richard Linklater’s films are known for making ordinary characters seem so exceptional. His last film, Boyhood, was an incredible epic following the same actors for 12 years while they grew up, simultaneously telling a heartfelt story; it is a tough film to follow up, but Linklater has done so impressively with Everybody Wants Some!!

Everybody Wants Some!! tells the story of the college freshman Jake (Blake Jenner) as he moves in the baseball team fraternity and what he and his group of jocks do the three days before classes start. Jake’s new friends consist of the philosophical Finn (Glen Powell), the junkie Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), the absentminded Plummer (Temple Baker), and the arrogant McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin) among others. The film follows them as they talk and get high, and as the party like there’s no tomorrow. Along the way we finally are freed from so much bromance with the entrance of Beverly (Zoey Deutch) who connects with Jake and gives the film a better sense of balance.

Certainly if there was anything off about this film it might have been the abuse of so much male ardor, I could have certainly used with 30 minutes less of it. But don’t get me wrong; this is a minor flaw in and otherwise delightful film.

Once again, Linklater’s greatest strengths come in his simple way of looking at life and in his incredibly likeable characters. On this first aspect, Linklater is able to address some of life’s most crucial moments and he makes us see them with such a carefree and optimistic lens. As for the second aspect, I simply love the characters’ in Everybody Wants Some!! you would love to just hang out and just chill with them. A great credit has to go to the actors, but the writing by Linklater is absolutely sublime as well.

But the film’s underlying message that struck me the most was one of pity. The film really rejoices in human interaction and improvising as you live on. But in today’s world our smartphones have really monopolized our social life with everyone else; we’re never in the moment anymore, it is a shame that most college kids of today won’t be able to experience what we see Jake experience in Everybody Wants Some!!

The film is a great time that will have you smiling your way through the two hours, and while the story might slow down into redundancy towards the halfway mark, it will nevertheless make you leave the theatre with a more optimistic look at your life, plus it’s got a killer soundtrack.

8.2/10