The To Do List

The To Do List
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Maggie Carey[1]
Produced by	Jennifer Todd[1] Brian Robbins[1] Sharla Sumpter Bridgett[1] Mark Gordon Tom Lassally Greg Walter
Written by	Maggie Carey[1]
Starring	Aubrey Plaza Johnny Simmons Bill Hader Scott Porter Alia Shawkat Rachel Bilson Christopher Mintz-Plasse Andy Samberg Connie Britton Clark Gregg
Music by	Raney Shockne
Cinematography	Doug Emmett
Editing by	Paul Frank
Studio	The Mark Gordon Company 3 Arts Entertainment
Distributed by	CBS Films
Release dates	July 26, 2013 (2013-07-26)
Running time	104 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million[3][4]
Box office	$3,883,704[4]

The To Do List is a 2013 American comedy film, released on July 26, 2013.^[1] Written and directed by Maggie Carey in her feature film directorial debut, the film stars Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Rachel Bilson. The film is about a recent high school graduate (Plaza), who feels she needs to have more sexual experiences before she starts college.^[1]

Plot

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza), from Boise, Idaho, is an overachieving but socially awkward teenager who graduates as the valedictorian of her high school in the summer of 1993. Brandy is the polar opposite of her older sister, Amber, who is not particularly intelligent, but socially savvy and sexually experienced. Amber makes fun of Brandy for being a virgin. After the ceremony, Brandy's two best friends, Wendy (Sarah Steele) and Fiona (Alia Shawkat), take Brandy to a party, where she gets drunk for the first time. At the party, in a darkened room, Brandy tries to make out with a college boy named Rusty Waters, on whom she has a crush. It turns out that Rusty mistook her for someone else. He realizes this when she tries to kiss him and rejects her. At this point she decides to learn all about sex over the summer to prepare for college; her end-of-summer goal is to have sexual intercourse with Rusty.

Rusty and Brandy both work at the local pool as lifeguards, along with her study-buddy Cameron Mitchell (Johnny Simmons). As the newbie, she is hazed by her slacker boss, Willy (Bill Hader), and her other coworkers, and given unpleasant jobs, including fishing a turd out of the pool. Based on the Baby Ruth joke from the film Caddyshack, she is confident that it is really a candy bar, and picks it up and takes a bite -- only to find out it was a real turd. Eventually, she pushes Willy into the pool as revenge and learns that he does not know how to swim. She agrees to teach him how to swim in exchange for payment and an end to the hazing.

Brandy gets advice from her sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson), her mother (Connie Britton), her father (Clark Gregg), a judge and devout conservative, and her two best friends. Using this information, she makes a checklist of sexual acts to learn about and perform. As the summer progresses, Brandy has several sexual encounters with Cameron and other boys, while trying to catch Rusty's eye. Cameron, interpreting her advances as signals of romantic interest and commitment, begins to fall for Brandy and is shattered when he discovers her list and realizes that he was just being used to advance her "mission." Meanwhile, Willy catches Brandy, Wendy, Fiona, and adult members of a male grunge band messing around in the pool after-hours. After a scolding, she is sent home where she is confronted by Cameron over the list. Cameron goes away in a huff and Brandy starts to cry. An ex-boyfriend of one of her best friends comes over, ostensibly to comfort her, and they end up hooking up.

When Wendy and Fiona come over to watch Beaches, they discover Brandy’s list and see the list of boys with whom she had experimented. They get upset when they found out that Brandy had hooked up with one of their ex-boyfriends. They leave, angrily, declaring that Brandy had failed to put "hos before bros," and call her a slut.

Brandy finally gets close to Rusty when they vandalize a rival pool, but the escapade leads to Willy being forced to fire her when they are caught. Brandy calls and asks out Rusty, and they drive in his Volkswagen Vanagon to a popular make-out spot to have sexual intercourse. Brandy is disappointed when Rusty ejaculates after less than a minute, which be blames on her desire to be on top (as she read it would increase her chances of orgasm by 40 percent). When she sees her father and mother in the Dodge Caravan next to them, apparently having sex, she freaks out and demands that Rusty take her home immediately.

Meanwhile, Willy goes to the Klark house to stop Brandy from having sex with Rusty, but is met at the door by Amber, who immediately seduces him. When Rusty gets Brandy home, a jealous Cameron is there to meet him with a sucker-punch, and they fight until Brandy breaks it up. She compliments each one on their good qualities, then apologizes sincerely to Cameron for using him and offers her own view of sex.

Afterward, she seeks out Wendy and Fiona to apologize to them. She sings "Wind Beneath My Wings" at Wendy's door, and the two girls eventually join in, indicating their forgiveness. Brandy meets up with Willy at the pool, who offers her his job if she comes back next summer as he had decided to quit and follow the Grateful Dead while Jerry Garcia is still alive.

In the fall, Brandy and Cameron meet again at Georgetown University where they have both matriculated. Cameron confesses that he recently lost his virginity. They have sex in her dorm room and Brandy finally achieves orgasm, the last thing on her list, right before her father walks in on them.

Cast

• Aubrey Plaza as Brandy Klark
• Johnny Simmons^[1] as Cameron Mitchell
• Bill Hader^[1] as Willy
• Scott Porter as Rusty Waters
• Alia Shawkat^[1] as Fiona
• Rachel Bilson^[1] as Amber Klark
• Christopher Mintz-Plasse^[1] as Duffy
• Andy Samberg^[1] as Van
• Connie Britton^[1] as Jean Klark
• Clark Gregg as Judge George Klark
• Donald Glover as Derrick
• Sarah Steele as Wendy
• Adam Pally as Chip
• Jack McBrayer as Hillcrest Pool manager

Production

The script was originally entitled The Handjob. The film was rejected by studios, but ended up on the "blacklist" of most popular unpublished scripts of 2010. A live table reading of the script at the Austin Film Festival led CBS Films to produce the project.^[5]

Reception

The To Do List has received mixed reviews, holding a 53% rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 86 reviews.^[6]

Plaza's role as Brandy Klark was praised by film critic Alan Scherstuhl, who writes for The Village Voice, that "unlike for the female characters in previous sex comedies, sex for her is a straight-up choice, something she offers or refuses according to no agenda but her own," but notes that "there's something dispiriting about [the film's] junky look, indifferent pacing, and sketch-comedy characterization."^[7]

On a more critical front, Rafer Guzman of Newsday gave the film one out of four stars, calling it "a fake feminist comedy that pays lip service to female empowerment but inadvertently makes sex seem both demeaning and meaningless," as well as "Vulgar, cynical and rarely funny."^[8] Paul Doro of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel' criticized the film for its extreme raunchiness, which he found to be unneeded; he named the film "an absurdly profane comedy that spends its entire time serving up filthy jokes and then trying to top them".^[9]

Box office

During the film's opening weekend, The To Do List earned $1,579,402 from 591 theaters, opening in 15th place. This was below expectations, the Los Angeles Times predicted an opening weekend of $2–3 million,^[10] and CBS Films was expecting $2 million.^[11][12]

References

External links

• The To Do List at the Internet Movie Database
• The To Do List at Box Office Mojo
• The To Do List at Rotten Tomatoes
• The To Do List at Metacritic