Before the credits are over for the fast and funny "Can't Hardly Wait" the word ripples through the ranks of capped-and-gowned seniors of Huntington Hills High that the unthinkable has happened: The class of '98's top jock (Peter Facinelli) and its perennial prom queen (Jennifer Love Hewitt) have broken up.
This is news of seismic implications--especially for nice-looking but timid Preston (Ethan Embry), who has had a crush on Hewitt's gorgeous Amanda since they were freshmen. As it happens, one of their classmates is throwing a graduation party at her lavish, elegant home while her parents are conveniently away. Will Preston take advantage of what may well be his last chance to make his feelings known to Amanda?
Writer-directors Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, in their directorial debuts, know where they're going and how to get there. They cram their background with no end of incident, comic gags, sharp asides and raucous, increasingly out-of-control "Animal House" boorishness.
But they're also able to bring to life not only Facinelli's bewildered Mike and Hewitt's newly perceptive Amanda but also Seth Green's Kenny, who mistakenly thinks it's cool to talk and dress like a black rapper, and Lauren Ambrose's Denise, a redhead who's never resorted to hiding her superior intelligence. And don't forget William (Charlie Korsmo), the class valedictorian, a constant object of peer contempt, who proves to be a closet rock 'n' roller--and is bent upon vengeance against his principal tormentor, Mike.
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For all its nonstop energy and high spirits, "Can't Hardly Wait" allows its characters to emerge as fully dimensional individuals; they've been written with care and perception and played with equal aplomb by a roster of talented young actors.
For Amanda, graduation proves to be a wake-up call: She can no longer deny that Mike, who has given her a sense of security throughout high school, is an immature jerk who hasn't grown at all over the past four years.
Mike, in turn, is faced with the instant eroding of his heretofore unchallenged authority, as he has a hard time persuading his best pals to break up with their girlfriends simply because he's no longer with Amanda. It clearly never occurred to Mike that being a high school hero would come to an abrupt end with graduation--or that once apart from the gracious Amanda that so many, especially the girls, consider him an oaf.
