Can't Hardly Wait

**Can't Hardly Wait** is a 1998 American teen romantic comedy film written & directed by Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont which was released on June 12, 1998 by Columbia Pictures.

## Plot

The film follows a group of teenagers graduating from high school who attend a graduation party at a wealthy classmate's house.

## Cast

* Ethan Embry as Preston Meyers
* Jennifer Love Hewitt as Amanda Beckett
* Lauren Ambrose as Denise Fleming
* Peter Facinelli as Mike Dexter
* Seth Green as Kenny Fisher
* Charlie Korsmo as William Lichter
* Robert Jayne as Richie Coolboy

## Production

The script for "Can't Hardly Wait" was originally written in 1996, by Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan who were looking for a project that they could develop and direct themselves on a limited budget.

The project was approved by Columbia Pictures in mid-1997, following the success of teen-oriented horror film, "Scream" in early 1997.

The cast had a week of rehearsals before filming.

Principal photography for "Can't Hardly Wait" began on October 27, 1997 and ended on December 19, 1997, lasting for 26 days. Filming took place in Los Angeles, California.

According to Charlie Korsmo, Adam Hann-Byrd was originally cast as William Lichter, but he was let go after a couple of days of filming.

Ethan Embry has never seen the film the whole way through and didn't even read the entire script. He only read the scenes his character appeared in.

Jennifer Love Hewitt gave Ethan Embry a teddy bear full of breath mints for their climactic kissing scene.

Embry says everyone on set knew he spent most of his time smoking pot in his trailer and Hewitt wasn't too keen on kissing Embry, who described himself as "a skunk-scented chimney." He said he gladly used the breath mints as they alleviated his cottonmouth.

Filming the final scenes of the party for the film meant a chaotic destruction of the house. Directors Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont gave the go-ahead to completely trash the place; this involved the cast and crew pulling out drawers, dropping food all over the floor, messing up the carpets, and someone spray painting "This Party Sucked" on the front door. This all happened in one hour.

"Can't Hardly Wait" initially received an R-Rating due to MPAA objections about the depiction of teens drinking alcohol at an unsupervised party and drug use. The film was re-cut to receive a PG-13 rating.

## Box Office

"Can't Hardly Wait" grossed $8,025,910 during its opening weekend. Overall, it grossed $25,605,015 on an estimated budget of $10,000,000.

## Critical Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Can't Hardly Wait" has an approval rating of 40% based on 62 reviews with an average rating of 5.1\10. The site's consensus reads: *"Occasionally clever and moderately intelligent, Can't Hardly Wait also contains too many cheap laughs, recycled plotting, and flat characters."*

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave it a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.

The San Francisco Chronicle said it has *"freshness, comic invention and an engaging romantic spirit."*

Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader called it a *"pleasant rendition of a teen-comedy trope."*

Variety magazine called "Can't Hardly Wait" a *"mediocre attempt to recapture the exuberance and candid portraiture of such high school movie classics as American Graffiti, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Dazed and Confused."*

James Berardinelli from ReelViews wrote: *"Instead of bringing intriguing characters with real problems and interesting dialogue to the bash, Kaplan and Elfont take the lazy approach of pulling generic stereotypes off the shelf and throwing them into a formulaic plot that doesn't offer one genuine surprise or meaningful moment."*

The L.A. Weekly said: *"The cast of mostly unknowns is agreeable if unnecessarily bland, not a Spicoli among them."*

David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor said: *"The filmmakers seem well in control of their chaotic material, but what can be said when the movie features wall-to-wall teenage alcohol abuse."*

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote: *"For all its nonstop energy and high spirits, Can't Hardly Wait allows its characters to emerge as fully dimensional individuals; they've been written with care and perception and played with equal aplomb by a roster of talented young actors."*

Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club said that the film *"deserves credit, both for its breezy pacing and its uncommon tendency to make its characters smarter and geekier than they might have been."*