• Wide Release
• Director: Dana Lustig
• Written by: Chris Charney, David Kolbowicz, Grant Vetters
• Running Time: 120 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned
• Cast: Tania Raymonde, Rumer Willis, Kristin Cavallari, Tia Carrere, Ryan Merriman, Rob Schneider, Kallie Flynn Childress, Tom Heaton, John White, Jesse Moss, Tegan Moss, Elle Schneider, Brodie Sanderson, Brian Takahashi, Joelle ten Damme, Caroline Choi, Adam Crosby, Jordan David, Jennifer Donison, Kyle Hodges, Kyle Kaplan, Suzanne Kelly, Ashley Mayberry, Kristin McCoy, David Turnbull

Dana Lustig’s “Wild Cherry” reminds me of another shot-in-Canada movie “Pigs”, in that both are based on a premise involving adolescent males engaging in a contest to sleep with a number of females. In “Pigs” a student (Jefferson Brown) wagers his collegiate mates that he can screw his way through the entire alphabet of coeds. In “Wild Cherry”, it’s the school football team attempting to screw the entire senior female class, all in an effort to appease the superstitious wonks of a secretive “bang book” passed down from season to season. The difference between the two films is that while “Pigs” was ultimately a mean-spirited, misogynistic affair with virtually no redeeming qualities, “Wild Cherry” charts a far different course as it weighs into its ugly subject matter – one that is much more light hearted, thoughtful and even, dare I say, sweet.

A trio of virginal females, Trish Van Doren (Kristin Cavallari), Helen McNicol (Tania Raymonde) and Katlyn Chase (Rumer Willis – yes, Bruce and Demi’s daughter), in their last year of high school, set out to shoot a documentary (snippets of which appear throughout the film) which details the personal first time sexual experiences of their classmates. I’m not entirely sure how such a documentary would go over in a real high school setting, however, it makes for an interesting movie premise, and so I won’t quibble too much about it. Anyways, it is through this project, and the revelations from some of the more promiscuous girls in their class, that they gradually become aware of a legendary “bang book” which has been passed around the football team’s locker-room, going back, apparently, all the way to the 1950s. The book has a list of female names – each of which is in their senior year and curiously corresponds with a male name currently playing on the school’s football team. It seems the book is part of a superstition that has been passed down year to year, that the players must sleep with all the females in their class or they will be in jeopardy of losing the season. Suddenly coming into ugly focus is all that recent attention the three girls have been receiving from a trio of guys on the football team. It is at this point that the three ladies elect to turn the tables on them, using a combination of feminine allure and down n' dirty pranks to stick it to them.

Emerging through a veritable slew of skit-like revenge gags, the crudest of which involves a bowl of punch, a bottle of Viagra and some semen frozen in an ice tray, romance indeed blossoms, as the girls eventually have a change of heart regarding their little venture. This is prompted by the sudden realization that the book means more to them than to the guys on the team, or at least the three guys who have been picked to be their suitor. For football players Brad 'Skeets' Skeetowski (Jesse Moss), Stanford Prescott (Ryan Merriman) and Franklin Peters (John White) their various games of seduction have resulted in them actually developing unexpected feelings for the girls – we think? This is the aspect of “Wild Cherry” that reminded me of “Pigs” in that, for a good portion of the film, it is hard to tell if the guy’s are merely manipulating the girls – a means to an end, as it were -- or if they are totally sincere in their feelings. Strangely enough, this is also the aspect of the film that the filmmakers seem unsure of how to approach as certain romantic combinations, at least the ones that work, eventually give way to others that don’t. I’m speaking primarily of an early sequence where a charged up Katlyn rebuffs Franklin’s nervous romantic advances by throwing herself at him sexually. Franklin has a thing for the tomboyish Katlyn, something I sensed was genuine, and wants to have sex with her… in time, but he also wants to be apart of her life. “Let’s not make more of this than it really is,” Katlyn tells him, essentially blowing off his amorous overtures. When Franklin begins to gather his things to leave, Katlyn becomes flustered, “I thought you wanted this.” To which Franklin replies, “I did, but not this way.” See, for me, this was the most romantic moment in the film, and for whatever reason, it’s the single thread of “Wild Cherry” that is all but forgotten, as the filmmakers elect to take the Katlyn character in another more surprising, but less fulfilling, direction.

“Wild Cherry” really finds its way after the games begin, as the trio of girls are faced with a sudden dilemma, one that promises to change them in a profound way. See, just as their game of retribution starts to play out, certain feelings come to the surface as each realizes just how badly they want to lose their virginity. Folks, what I didn’t mention was that the girls here are just as horny as the guys are and they want to fuck just as much as the guys do, but, for obvious reasons, they feel compelled to adopt a sort of Gloria Steinem mindset, and engage the males in this “all men suck!” revenge plot. Just the idea of a film that presents (not projects) women as the sexual beings they are, not as men want them to be, is totally refreshing. That, in a nutshell, is what I loved about the film and, for me, what set it apart from so many of those testosterone-driven “American Pie” clones out there. Although written by three males, this is a sex comedy that seems to materialize organically from a very female place, leading me to suspect that Dana Lustig had more to do with the script than the credits suggest. In so many teensploitation films I’ve seen, females are shown to be less pre-disposed to sex and sexuality, and it drives me nuts. How many films have I seen where some teenaged guy has masturbated for shits and giggles? I don’t know, a dozen? Now, contrast that with the amount of mainstream films that have featured a young female experiencing herself sexually? “Not Another Teen Movie” is about the only one that comes to mind. “Wild Cherry”, regardless of whether or not it is a sex comedy directed at a young male demographic, it somehow manages to depict (and celebrate) female sexuality much more honestly than half of those sloppy, sentimental chick flicks I’ve seen over the years. To be clear, this film has those exploitative elements (lots of them!), but it also has elements of reverent sincerity and charm. A pair of quaint scenes involving Tania Raymonde experimenting for the first time with how to get herself off utilizing music, her fingers and various other long and thin objects, is funny, sexy and sweet all at the same time – and there’s even a punch line involving a carrot that is both awkward and hilarious. It is almost befitting of the film’s overall sweet tone that when confronted about the “bang book”, the original author, Handsome Pete (the awesome Tom Heaton), confesses that its conception really wasn’t about sex, it was about helping to bring guys and girls together: “It was an ice breaker,” he tells the group of stunned jocks who have tracked him down, looking for advice.

The director of “Wild Cherry” is clearly striving for something authentic -- a portrait of adolescent females who are just coming into their own in a sexual sense, awakening to the reality of themselves as sexual beings; and all the frustrations and pleasures that accompany that sudden awareness. To a lesser degree, the guys are going through these same changes, even if they project otherwise, but alas, they are not the film’s focus. It’s about the girls, dummy! While all the females have their place here, the film seems to rotate around Tania Raymonde’s character, whose naivety with regards to sex, and even her own burgeoning break into womanhood, is endearing. I first became aware of this young lady on an episode of “That’s So Raven” like a gazillion years ago, and boy, she’s come a long way since then, having appeared in over twenty films and television shows, including a prominent role on “Lost”. Raised by her doting, trombone playing, toilet-designing father, Rob Schneider (in a stunningly subdued performance), her character, Helen, longs to move to Paris to live with her mother, a woman she barely knows but is anxious to connect with. Weighing her overwhelming desire to lose her virginity to Stanford, something she can’t discuss with her father, against her desire for retribution, something she does, ultimately leads her to understand one of the most important lessens in life -- no, not the “power of the pussy”, as Tia Carrere, playing a Zen-like teacher, suggests, but rather how sometimes you can’t rush things -- that love, sex and the clarity of time, are what living is all about.