Director: Richard Linklater

Writer: Richard Linklater

Starring: Will Brittain, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Blake Jenner, J. Quinton Johnson, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Austin Amelio, Temple Baker, Tanner Kalina, Juston Street, Forrest Vickery

Rating: ★★★½

Writer and director Richard Linklater wrote the first draft of Everybody Wants Some!! way back in 2005, and it took eleven years from then for the actual film to be released. It follows Jake Bradford (Blake Jenner), a college freshman who moves into a house with members of the college baseball team that he’s part of. The film follows the members of the team through the last few days and hours before classes begin.

There’s next to no stakes throughout the film as the characters wander through the last moments of true freedom before class begins. There’s an incredibly natural style to it all, and you feel like you’re just watching a snapshot of someone’s life, rather than watching a standard three act story. A lot of the events are things that actually happened while Linklater was in college and that really shows through how authentic everything feels. It’s just about life and through some incredible performances from the entire cast, Linklater explores the past and creates some memorable and realistic characters. 

The film has a lot of similarities to Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused, and Linklater has even called Everybody Wants Some!! a spiritual sequel to the 1993 film. While Dazed and Confused focuses on the end of high school, following a group of teenagers on the cusp of summer, this film is about the beginning of collage, in the last few hours before classes begin (there’s even a countdown to the first class that appears throughout the film). Much like Dazed there’s an emphasis of the dynamics between the different year groups and the cycles they go through. Jake has it pointed out a lot that he’s a freshman and hasn’t earnt the position of teammate yet, by classmates who were probably being told the same thing the year before, and Jake will go on to tell the next year’s freshman. There are similar ideas being explored in Dazed as well.

From the first moments of the film you can feel Linklater’s style shining through. If you’re a fan of his other films or like very character driven stories that are light on plot, then you’ll probably enjoy this one.

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