Never Change (now on Hulu) is the new lunatic comedy from American High, a production company that apparently aspires to be the next Happy Madison. That is, it specializes in films that don’t aim too high of brow, which is a nice way of saying they’re pretty much stupid on purpose. See also: 2020 Pete Davidson vehicle Big Time Adolescence, which helped launch the brand, and most recently, the somewhat self-explanatory Pizza Movie. The key creative behind Never Change is John Reynolds (Search Party), who gets lone screenwriting credit and a key role in the ensemble, and is most likely the one to blame for this wannabe-deranged comedy that’s chock-full of go-nowhere-on-purpose jokes. Whether that tickles your f-bone is the question.
NEVER CHANGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: And by that, I mean “funny bone,” ye of dirty minds. The premise: In 2008, a tornado tore through North Meadows, devastating the high school, and the graduating class was given a pass and allowed to walk despite the truncated school year. In the film’s most absurdist joke, legislation is passed to improve education — what is this, some sort of ridiculous alternate universe or what? — which means said class has to complete two weeks of high school lest their diplomas be declared illegitimate. Problem is, Never Change is set in the present day, and members of said class have aged to their mid-30s, because that’s what happens when one applies the passage of time to the human body. This means a bunch of adults are about to crush each other in the nards with dodgeballs, gut out a sex-ed class led by a remarkably horny instructor, and endure the most awkward prom ever. It’s only logical!
Among the notable retro-students is Katie Cartwright (Sofia Black-D’Elia), a TV newscaster; Sunny Football (Reynolds), an aimless sort who invented pants made out of towels; Tedi Mayo (Carmen Christopher), father of too many kids who owns the local watering hole, Stools (get it? “Stools”? Like the poop?); Curtis Eldgridge (Gary Richardson), a recently fired advertising wonk who keeps experiencing horrific visions/flashbacks of alien abductions; and Amelia Nadler (Jo Firestone), fresh off a breakup with an aspiring DJ, which, against all common sense, has made her depressed. Katie and Sunny consider rekindling their teenage romance, despite her being engaged to a moron (Rudy Pankow). Amelia and Curtis reminisce about being in the school play, a true crime endeavor about North Meadows serial killer saga the Handsome Man Murders, overseen by a creepy director (Topher Grace) who must once again bring his (apparently confessional) masterpiece back to the stage. And Tedi, he yells a lot and I’m not a fan of his hair.
This summary is a grossly inaccurate reflection of Never Change, because it implies there’s a plot that hangs together and functions with any real narrative force. In truth, it’s a collection of deadpan it’s-so-random gags featuring characters who may be under the influence of sociopathy-inducing mass hypnosis. I mean, that teacher, Ms. Jankey (Maria Thayer), is so horny she even bends wayyyyy over in front of dumbass Tedi. Pot brownies get consumed, a guy dies and gets a tribute, another guy throws a raging kegger because his parents are gone, forever, as in they died, recently. Roberta Colindrez, Sunita Mani, Patti Harrison, and Ana Gasteyer turn up in this thing as other characters stirred into the nonsense stew. Are we laughing, though? Not enough.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? I dunno man, The Napa Boys found a way to bullseye the type of surreal comedy Never Change seems to be aiming for, but might be too stoned to pull off.
Performance Worth Watching: Black-D’Elia seems to be playing the only character even remotely recognizable as a non-insane human being. I don’t know if it works in this particular film, so I’ll just casually mention that her too-brief performance in Remarkably Bright Creatures was enjoyable.
Sex And Skin: Just some raunchy talk.
Our Take: As ever, your mileage will vary with this type of chaotic comedy. And it’s a sub-brand of comedy I call nonedy, which is engineered to deliver unjokes, which we’re supposed to laugh at simply because they’re engineered to be presented as funny even though they’re rather obviously not funny. E.g., the repetition of the word “shit” and a running joke about the use of the word “obsoosed,” both of which yield a significant amount of silence from the audience. See? Nonedy.
So I have to ask: Are actual joke-type jokes passe? As a Gen-Xer who watched 1987 Mark Harmon hands-down classic Summer School far too many times to be healthy (note: it’s not really a hands-down classic), am I outside the apparent Millennial-and-younger target audience? I’m willing to admit that new developments in comedic styles exist outside my demographic barriers. That’s just reality.
But Never Change allows that manner of un-ness to seep into the key components of its structure and execution. Reynolds and director Marty Schousboe stir in half-assed cliches of teen high-school sex comedies as if they aimed for satire but got bored halfway through conceptualizing it and said hey, good enough. The film begins as a collection of jokes, but deviates into moments of earnest sentimentality in the third act, essentially undermining its harder-edged jokes (the inevitable bit of dark comedy about school shootings, for example). And as soon as it gives us the sense that it’s not putting necessary effort into the writing and character work and instead turning on the camera and trying too hard to be funny on the spot, well, it’s sunk. It’s loosey-goosey by design, but ultimately to a fault.
Our Call: This might end up being a cult favorite for someone out there, somewhere, but it ain’t me. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.