good film -- more than meets the eye

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2003)

Crude, rude, crass, sophomoric and predictable at times, American Pie is carefully crafted to appeal to a range of audiences. But whatever you can say about it, for me the whole thing works!
I do not think you can view this movie as simply the exposition of late 20th century mores viewed through the lens of the average hormonally driven American male. Rather it is at once and the same time an exposition about expectation. The expectation of the time after high school, of relationships, of new found physicality, of intimate expression, of going forward into the future.
Herz and Weitz craftily use the testosterone enriched environment of high school as the vehicle on which to carry this theme. While many characters in literature and cinema have embarked on their own search for truth, American Pie is more about the embarkation upon the journey than the journey itself.
The theme is repeated over and over again, and subtly (as distinct from the crassness of much of the movie) reinforced through out the film. The journey is presented in the choices of colleges, the coach's speech at the lacrosse game, the `bus' to the prom night party and the duet sung by Heather and Chris. It is expressed most poignantly by the characters of Vicky and Kevin when they recognize that while they have each consummated there love their futures will lead them to something different than they had envisioned just hours before.
The late teen years are perhaps the only moment in time when the future potential of each of us is present in such abundance and so readily convertible into present achievement.
If you are young (a late teen) and you watch this movie consider how this movie presents a modern parable to you about all the future potential you have before you and how this moment is a but a temporary gift, to be used and enjoyed before it becomes the prevailing present.
If you are older, allow the magic of celluloid and the fine craft of the writer, director and actors to transport you back to a time when the future beckoned and each experience was as new as that spring day on which this movie begins.