Author Rating: 3.5 Stars

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) has just graduated high school and is on her way to Columbia. She realizes that she has missed out on the sexual part of high school and only has one summer to get it all in. To finally catch up with the sexual experimentation, she makes a “to do” list of sexual actions to take. Her goal is to sleep with hottie Rusty Waters (Scott Porter- who really is a hottie).

After understanding that Brandy is book smart and not sex smart, she asks for help from her sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson), as well as her friends Fiona (Alla Shawkat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele). And as the movie goes on, Brandy gets lost in her own sexual world and causes rifts in her personal relationships

Honestly, this was a pretty hard review for me to write. The To Do List wasn’t bad but it was great either. It was consistently funny but not hilarious. It was just another funny movie.
Don’t get me wrong; I love funny movies. They’re my favorite genre. From raunchy to innocent, humor is always the best in my book. My issue with the movie was the average-ness.

The cast was great. Bill Hader was at an all-time high in this movie. And Aubrey Plaza fell perfectly into the role of Brandy. There were great jokes and it was very funny to watch Brandy interact with horny boys.

Even though it was about Brandy losing her V-Card (among other things as well), there was female empowerment under all of the sexual humor. While it sounds impossible, there were some coming-of-age moments.

I was born in 1992 and the movie was set in 1993. I have a pretty good memory but I am not exactly sure what life was like in 1993 so some of the popular culture references went over my head. Though, that didn’t make the movie less enjoyable for me.

The real takeaway for me was how weak the movie was. Some of the important moments and story-arcs were being held up by jokes. And sometimes the predictability made me roll my eyes.

And when jokes are repeated throughout the movie, they got old. And the “awkward moments” in Brandy’s life seemed to happen over and over again. I laughed the first time but after that, it wasn’t funny.

My favorite part of the movie was that it wasn’t a sequel, based on a book, based on a true story, remake, robot or superhero movie. It was original and that is a reason enough to see it.

No matter how weak the plot is or cheesy the jokes are- at least there aren’t giant robots roaming the streets.

The To Do List is rated R and runs 104 minutes.