BEHAVING BADLY

US, 2013, 97 minutes, Colour.
Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Mary Louise Parker, Elizabeth Shue, Dylan Mc Dermott, Lachlan Buchanan, Heather Graham, Ashley Rickards, Jason Lee, Austen Stowell, Cary Elwes, Patrick Warburton, Gary Busey.
Directed by Tim Garrick.

Behaving Badly certainly lives up to its title. It is based on a novel, While I am Dead, Feed the Dog.

In itself, it is one of those routine high school comedies with an emphasis on the raunchy, a touch of the no-holds-barred in subject and treatment. What is surprising about the film is the number of significant Hollywood actors who have taken on roles, thrown off a lot of inhibitions, and give rather uninhibited performances. This includes Mary Louise Parker and Elizabeth Shue as two mothers, the latter as a rather promiscuous mother. Dylan Mc Dermott appears as a gangster running a club, and Heather Graham as a sexy lawyer. Cary Elwes is a father, divorced, in a gay relationship and Patrick Warburton is the principal of the school, a sex offender.

However, the focus of the film is on a teenager, Rick (Nat Wolff from Palo Alto and Paper Towns). He gives the impression of being rather innocuous, sometimes talking straight to camera, but not as innocent as he looks, doing messages for the club gangster, involved with some striptease dancers (and his sister is one of these), having a continued affair with the mother of his best friend. What he says he really wants is a relationship with the nice girl in the school, Selena Gomez.

While the film focuses on domestic problems, on the club, on affairs, there is also a subplot with Eastern European gangsters and Rick dobbing in his father as if he were a Mafia type, and his being interrogated by the local police, Gary Busey.

Also involved is the local priest, played certainly without inhibitions by Jason Lee, a swearing-in confession type, having an affair with Elizabeth Shue, having dubious connections with the Eastern European gangsters, seen in a mock confessional sequence.

In many ways, the jokes and cracks are obvious, even if rather cheap.

At its best, the film could be seen as something of a satiric black comedy. At its worst, a cheap and juvenile attempt at the raunchy.