For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
Depending on your age, the R rated teenage comedy Project X may either be a masterpiece or a nightmare. If you’re in your teens, for you this may be the ultimate party movie; if you’re in your late twenties/early thirties you might be happy you’re no longer in your teens; and if you’re way over thirty with teenagers and a home of your own, Project X may well be the most horrific film of the year.
Filmed – yet again – with a hand-held camera, and seemingly inspired by the crassness and crude behavior of the teenagers in the late night sit-com The Inbetweeners, Project X covers a day and night in the life of young Thomas. It’s his birthday and his parents are going away for a few days. So, what does a teenager do when his parents are out of town, the house is his and it’s his eighteenth? Throw the party to end all parties, of course.
At the beginning, Thomas’ trusting parents give their son the parent/teenager speech when it comes to handling the house in their absence. Dad’s office is out of bounds (so you know it’ll eventually be trashed) the car is not to be touched (so you know that’ll definitely be trashed) and look after the family dog (don’t even ask).
Initially, the idea behind Project X sounded interesting. The filmmakers wanted inexperienced actors cast in most roles in order to give the film the look of realism – a cross-section representing all aspects of today’s American youth – coupled with the rough-edged look of documentary style photography. Also, cast members could not read full scripts, indicating that any surprises could not be leaked out in advance of a showing. So far, so interesting, but the makers didn’t follow through.
For one thing, most of the scenes with the lead and his two high-school nerdy buddies are scenes from uninspired TV that just happen to be filmed with a hand-held. Also, while most of the guys at the party could be called a representation of the diversity of the American male teenager – everything from the jock, the over-weight guy, the nerd, the boorish best friend, even a midget (!) – the girls are all Californian sun-tanned hotties straight out of the pages of the college edition of Playboy with an aggressive approach to getting drunk, taking off tops, dropping Ecstasy tablets, and having sex. There’s not an average looking high-schooler among any of them. Realism be damned, these girls are the manifestation of a teenage boy’s fantasy.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the film is that it doesn’t live up to what it appeared to be promising; a comic look with a realistic approach of what could happen when too many kids turn up for a teenager’s party. Certainly the film succeeds in showing events that get so incredibly way out of hand that police and the SWAT team have to be called in, but there’s neither anything clever nor inventive in the proceedings, nothing that surprises, plus the film truly lets itself down with its conclusion that truly has nothing to do with real life. In reality, considering what happens to the house and the surrounding neighborhood, the teenage boy’s life would be ruined – the kid has no future - yet the film ends on what looks like a whimsically, upbeat John Hughes, brat-pack note. The makers have chickened out on showing what would really happen to him. But, clearly, despite the casting of unknowns and all the production secrecy, reality was never the intention in the first place. It’s just another teenage party daydream filmed this time around with a hand-held.
A colleague in the critic’s society commented after the movie was over that perhaps Project X is this generation’s American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused. I don’t buy it. For one thing, compared to X those two examples are practically Shakespearean in context. Second, if Project X is truly the film that gives teenagers what they want today – or have settled for - in big screen entertainment, then they truly get the cinema they deserve.
