Freshman Orientation (2004)

I love this movie so much

Good movie but grossly overrated

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Adam Clay (Sam Huntington) is a freshman at college whose goal is to score. His goal becomes Amanda (Kaitlin Doubleday). Amanda belongs to a wicked sorority. Her initiation task is to find a gay male and break his heart. Adam pretends he is gay to get close to Amanda. Neither knows the truth about each other.Adam pretending to be gay is the main humor of the film. The film had a number of humorous moments and overall I enjoyed it in spite of none of the characters being real or done particularly well, other than John Goodman playing a gay bar tender.A similar film is "Chicks Dig Gay Guys" although it is not one I recommend.Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (3 uncredited)

The premise alone reeks of desperation: Determined college freshman Matt (a likable performance by Sam Huntington) pretends to be gay so he can score with the sweet and enticing Amanda (a charming portrayal by the fetching Kaitlin Doubleday). Sound hilarious? Well, it just ain't. Writer/director Ryan Shiraki pours on the crude and idiotic jokes about puking, farting, masturbation, and attempted date rape with an excruciatingly heavy hand, thus ensuring that said jokes elicit groans instead of laughs. Moreover, the characters are generic one-note stereotypes (snarky sorority bitch, stuck-up frat stud, abrasive lesbian, and so on) and the narrative follows a straight down the line predictable trajectory in which various folks learn the truth about themselves and become better people in the process. In addition, it's downright painful to see such talented cast members as Heather Matarazzo (saddled with an unbearably obnoxious character) and John Goodman (surprisingly bubbly and amusing as a friendly gay bartender) wasted on the sophomoric material. While this movie unfolds at a snappy enough pace and has a few moments of genuine heart, it's overall about as funny as slowly dying from colon cancer.

Freshmen Orientation is a comedy about a guy who pretends he is gay to get closer to a girl he likes. She is going out with him to fulfill a sorority pledge challenge in which inductees have to date some sort of "freak" and then dump them to purposely be hurtful. The movie tries to get political when the main character starts attending support meetings for gay and lesbian students. We see plenty of stereotypes, none more pronounced than the militant activist lesbians who are ready to rally a protest at the drop of a hat. In the end, both characters admit they were being deceitful and they end up together after a heartfelt talk on a park bench.It wasn't so much that the acting was terrible, it was just that the script make the actors sound bad no matter how they delivered their lines. I liked the actress who was in charge of the sorority (she played Suzane Somers in a Three's Company t.v. movie that I really liked), and I kind of liked the ex-girlfriend who was now lesbian (the only likable character in the movie). The guy playing the lead is hopeless--you just can't expect someone with that little ability to carry an entire film.I think most people would agree that the images of gay and lesbian students in this movie are more damaging than progressive, even though I get the sense that there might have been good intentions behind the making of the film. Even though it tries to treat some of the characters with empathy and respect (the roommate, the ex), it just doesn't work in a crude sex comedy that appears to be marketed to horny high school boys. I hated it.

I'm not sure what the sexuality is of the director/writer of Freshman Orientation (Or, Home of Phobia), Ryan Shiraki, but after watching this "feel-good" about being gay movie, my suspicion is that he's straight and did all the research on that opposite "lifestyle" to make this movie. Much like, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (made afterward), both movies throw every cliché, every "Dorothy" comment, every stereotype in as if they just read a bunch of old Advocate magazines and took notes.That's not to say it was a bad movie, in fact, Freshman Orientation was a relatively sweet movie at times, thanks to Huntington (which was interesting to see him away from his (probably) one-time stint as Jimmy Olsen) and Doubleday. Sure, it was filled with said clichés both with the homosexual references and the college types, predictable as all Hades and a tad bit uneven, and yet, I would recommend for a slow movie night.Clay (Huntington) arrives at college to meet all the usual suspects in these college-dayz movies. Amanda (Doubleday) says goodbye to her familiar drunk single, stuck-up mother and arrives at her sorority house of the normal smiling bitches. She gets taken by the boring ladies down her path to find & humiliate a "fag" to pledge herself while Clay and new friend, Matt (Erwin), try to join the fraternity brothers and WHAM!, the two stories collide.Clay's mistaken for gay and is used for her sorority sister prank while he uses her to, well, just get laid by acting gay. He must learn to "be gay" to get the girl, if that makes any sense while she must learn to open up to someone and reject her stuck-up lifestyle. Meanwhile, Clay's roommate, Matt, must learn to accept his homosexuality (sure, that's supposed to be a secret, but it's blatantly obvious from the get-go) and come to feelings he has for Clay.Sure, the conclusion is seen a mile away and writer Shiraki must have known that too, because a lot was put into the finale, including some hideous lovey-dovey relationship between the straights and the gays after a faux pas gay-bashing subplot. Weird ending, and makes you despise activists, but it's not a "straight" forward movie to begin with.Recommended, slightly, for the touching portrayals from the actors. Not groundbreaking, but at least its heart's in the right place.