Much like how there are a ton of movies that focus of the creation of products this year – like Air, BlackBerry, and The Beanie Bubble – 2023 has also been the year for female-driven raunchy comedies. We had No Hard Feelings, Joy Ride, and now, The Re-Education of Molly Singer.
Molly Singer (Britt Robertson) looks at college as the best time of her life: she could party all night, and crash without consequence. Her life now, however, is all about consequence. Despite the fact that it’s been 8 years since college, Molly has pretty much the same lifestyle, which is causing her to get in trouble with her job. Though it does beg the question: how did Molly get the good grades necessary for a career as a lawyer if she was partying non-stop? Don’t go into the movie looking for an answer to this.
When she fails to turn up on time for an important court date after a night of partying, her boss Brenda (Jaime Pressly) fires her, before rehiring her to go back to college and help her recluse son Elliot (Ty Simpkins) thrive socially. Molly jumps on the offer, and drags along her best friend Ollie (Nico Santos), who never finished his degree. The premise is fairly similar to Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings, though not quite as emotionally resonant.
Firstly, the movie is shot like a TV show. We flit from scene to scene with no sense of cohesion, there are even fade to blacks, which feels like something mostly reserved for made for TV movies. We can tell that it’s shot on a budget, because the college scenes don’t feel realistic at all. There’s no bustle, and most of the scenes take place in small interiors so we won’t notice that there aren’t many people in the scene.
I’ve been rewatching Gilmore Girls recently, and even though it’s a TV show, it still manages to make Rory’s college and campus life feel authentic. When your entire movie is about the college experience, then more effort should go into developing these aspects. Even college boy Elliot looks too old to be in college. Elliot takes a liking to fellow freshie Lindsay (Cierra Ramirez), for no reason besides the fact that she spoke to him nicely outside his dorm room. Molly and Ollie set up in an off campus apartment – how they get this apartment involves a cringeworthy scene that’s best not spoken of even again – and take it upon themselves to become Elliot’s wingmen.
Robertson commits fully as the zany Molly Singer, and helps us understand why Molly was so popular in college, but the role doesn’t give her much to do except drink and party a lot. Molly even hosts a drinking decathlon, and we’re treated to a plethora of college drinking games with a wisecracking commentator. At some point, drinking that much so frequently is indicative of a darker problem, Halfway into the movie, she mentions that she doesn’t enjoy being a lawyer, which could explain why she’s sabotaging her job, but this should have been a bigger part of the introduction, and not just a throwaway fact brought in much later.
For a title that boasts about re-education, very little of that happens until the end of the movie. At that point, it feels a little too late.
Review screener provided.
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