Raunchy teen comedies can only be as sincere and big as the size and nature of the heart they dare to wear on their sleeves. Sure, its sex-centric jokes can be hilarious, but can you imagine loving “Superbad” without the disarmingly sweet friendship of Jonah Hill’s Seth and Michael Cera’s Evan at the film’s core? It’s exactly because of that bromance that deepens and struggles over the course of a booze-soaked night where “I love you man”s and nose-boops get exchanged, that we affectionately adore that movie. Natalie Morales’ “Plan B” seems to agree, as it is the same spirit the actor-turned-director revives in her feisty and hilariously foul-mouthed debut feature. Here, we follow two high-school-aged girlfriends, a sharp, witty, motor-mouth pair with enviable platonic chemistry and harmony, on an overnight road-trip as they seek an emergency solve to a probable accidental pregnancy within South Dakota’s conservatively anti-choice confines.Plan B 2021.
In that regard, Morales’ movie walks in the footsteps of various recent female-centric pictures—the top-shelf studio comedy “Blockers” with a fiercely sex-positive message, the delightfully vigorous “Booksmart” and to a degree, even the devastating “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” with its fearless plunge into America’s shameful anti-abortion leanings. And it does so with such energy and singularity, thanks in large part to the leading duo—two undeniable stars-in-the-making. One is the exceptional Kuhoo Verma, whom you might recall from her brief yet memorable scene in “The Big Sick” as an arranged match to Kumail Nanjiani. (“The truth is out there!”) She plays the straight-laced Sunny, whose hobbies include masturbating to male bodies in her anatomy book and trying to live up to the high expectations of her successful mom while steering clear of her culture’s prying eyes that she calls “The Indian Mafia.”