A brilliant blend of comedy and fantasy searching for the answer to one question. Now that Mike O Donnell is 17 again: What would he change in his life?
Let me ask you this: If you could go back in time, what would you change in your life?
This endearingly funny comedy-romance from 2009, 17 Again, answers this as we reminisce about those sweet yet sour moments of our hectic teenage life. For me, five years doesn’t seem that long ago, but ahh, what I’d do to go back to those endless driving lessons and a big smack in the face from my A-level exams. I kid, of course.
I’ve seen quite a few time-travelling films like Back to The Future and 13 Going on 30, but none quite made me crackle as much as this Burr Steers’ teen flick did. We get to see the hysterical journey of a middle-aged Matthew Perry transformed into the young and dreamy Zac Efron, as the film is a brilliant blend of fantasy and comedy that celebrates youth. It finally gives us an answer to the question: Now that he’s 17 again, what would he change in his life?
Perry and Efron team up to mirror each other as a miserable 37-year-old man, Mike O'Donell, who is unhappy with his present mundane life. It all started when he decided to give up a basketball scholarship to be with his pregnant childhood sweetheart, Scarlett (Leslie Mann) , and thought he would be left with nothing but happiness and bliss on his new route in life. Except fast-forward 20 years later, and the only things he’s left with are divorce papers, a boring job, and two teenage children who merely tolerate him. Until one day, he switches back to his old 17-year-old self again. Now what happens?
Mike explains to his best friend, Ned (Thomas Lennon), that the reason he got another chance to be young again is so he could win a final basketball game to get a scholarship and achieve the future he wished he had as a 37-year-old. But as Mike ventures out into high school and sees that his son, Alex (Sterling Knight), is getting bullied and his misguided daughter, Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg), is dating his tormentor, he realises that the real purpose of his new form is to actually help his son and daughter believe in their true potential. All of this while falling back in love with Alex and Maggie’s middle-aged mother, who is none other than his ex-wife, Scarlett.
The guardian angel element was an excellent gesture to celebrate fatherhood and really was the heart of the film. Mike was shown to embrace his role as a dad in the body of a 17-year-old. The magical spell that made him jump up and scream in the mirror when he first saw himself ended up giving his life meaning and purpose.
Efron gave an impressive performance as someone who is almost 40, considering he was only 21 years old at the time. He effortlessly mimicked Perry's performance as an overprotective dad, and his portrayal of playing a sensitive teenager, who asks to help older mothers with their gardens and tells young girls to practise abstinence, humorously challenges the stereotypes of typical youth in an American high school setting. It cleverly shows the generational difference between the two teens and their father.
The scene in which Mike attends a party to help his son score with his crush but ends up lecturing young girls about self-respect makes me crack up the most as he hovers off somewhere else, claiming, "This is some other dad’s problem" when they refuse to listen and throw themselves at him.
I also liked the symbolism used in the film, such as the scene during which he plays basketball and keeps his eyes on his wife, Scarlett, which is shown in the beginning and the end again in slow motion to dramatise Mike’s choice of whether he’ll pick basketball or his wife. Which makes us ask ourselves again: Now that he’s 17, what would he change about his life?
