The To-Do List - DVD

Content: In school, Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) was a true model student with a nearly perfect final report. But the girl did not make many friends with it. Now, with the excitement of college fast approaching, her two best friends Fiona (Alia Shakat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele) want Brandy to finally experience something. Without further ado, they take their unsuspecting friend to a big graduation party, where Brandy drinks heavily for the first time in her life and makes out with a boy. It's the latter that Brandy really enjoys. But since she doesn't know anything about sex, she does what she does best: she makes a list of all the sexual things she wants to experience before she goes to college. From making out to heavy making out to oral sex, it all needs to be worked off if she doesn't want to end up an old maid. Her big goal: sex with handsome heartthrob Rusty (Scott Porter). But the road there is long and lined with numerous faux pas. And Brandy, of course, never misses a chance to step into them full force...

The To-Do List feels a bit like the girly version of American Pie. Like Jim, portrayed by Jason Biggs, Brandy is a sexual blank slate who doesn't miss a beat when it comes to exploring her own body and her first attempts at sexual contact with the opposite sex, stumbling from one messy embarrassment to the next. With a lot of charm, director Maggie Carey has revived the early 1990s in her feature film debut. And also the good-humored cast, led by a sympathetically nerdy Aubrey Plaza, provides an amusing basic mood.

In the course of the dramaturgically not exactly original story, there are then also quite a few very nice ideas and successful gags, which make clear how funny and good the film could have been. But unfortunately Carey always resorts to exaggerated fecal humor and adolescent jokes, which are also quite obviously borrowed from other representatives of the teen comedy genre. If Carey had concentrated a little bit more on the recognizable cleverness of some scenes and the underlying charm of her staging, the one or other joke set below the belt really wouldn't have bothered. But then, unfortunately, sex jokes with a gross-out factor dominate the proceedings time and again, dragging the level of the entire film down considerably.

The To-Do List isn't a total disaster, there are just too many well-done moments for that. And for fans of films like American Pie, even the slightly more low-brow gags should definitely hit home. It's just a shame that Maggie Carey keeps revealing that she's abandoned the potential for a cheeky, charming coming-of-age comedy in favor of a low-surprise teen romp. However, the good laughs and likeable cast are enough to allow it to still attest to being worth watching in the end.

Picture + Sound: There is hardly anything to criticize about the technical implementation. The colors are powerful, the image sharpness is on a good level and notable weaknesses such as significant blurring or image noise there is not to observe. The sound is perfectly satisfactory for a comedy, with the soundtrack and dialogue in particular setting the tone. However, minor surround effects here and there provide a bit of dynamic range, which is a bit more noticeable on the DTS track. Good!

Extras: The bonus offerings kick off with an amusing and informative audio commentary by director Maggie Carey and her husband/supporting actor/executive producer Bill Hader. The pair have a very good humoured chat about the making of the film and in the process offer the listener some very interesting details about the making of this low budget production. The film continues with two promo mini-featurettes (approx. 5 min. in total), which offer little real insight into the production. The trailer, a rather amusing gag reel (approx. 2:48 min.) and some short cut scenes (approx. 4:01 min.) round out the bonus offerings. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles to any of the extras, which is why only interested viewers with a good command of English can get their hands on the bonus material.

Conclusion: The To-Do List is an amusing comedy that, however, makes a little too much use of crude fecal humor instead of relying solely on its charm, the successful parodic features and the numerous amusing ideas. All in all, director Maggie Carey's feature film debut is a kind of female version of American Pie, which could have done with a little more courage to be clever, but which also offers good entertainment to friends of US comedies of the somewhat coarser kind. And for this there is then despite some Fremdschäm-Momente also a more than satisfied: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp