17 Again

This 2009 film certainly had a high concept: “High School Musical’s Zac Efron grows into Matthew Perry and back” and it didn’t disappoint!

The casting of both as Mike O’Donnell raised some eyebrows. Not only do they look nothing alike (I saw a Reddit post brilliantly pointing out Rob Lowe should have gotten Perry’s part), but Perry is considerably taller than Efron. That is handwaved by Mike, after returning to his younger form, saying he’s going through puberty, even though Efron, 20 at the time of filming, looks full grown.

What’s important is that they both play the part perfectly. Someone apparently desperate to have contributed something to IMDB wrote on the movie’s trivia page that Michelle Trachtenberg plays the daughter of Zac Efron, despite being two years older than him. That’s misleading at best and wrong at worst; she plays the daughter of Matthew Perry.

Of course even Matthew Perry would be a young dad to her, but that’s the point of the story.

Mike, as a 17-year-old looking at a college basketball scholarship in 1989, suddenly finds out he’s impregnated his girlfriend Scarlet. He loves her, and thus decides to throw away his college/basketball plans to be her husband and the father to the baby girl (as well as the boy they have two years later).

Mike seemingly did the right thing, and was happy to do it, but in 2007, when the movie is set, Mike is a very bitter 35-year-old whose lamenting his missed opportunities has led to Scarlet filing for divorce and his kids not speaking with him.

After ruefully telling his best friend Ned how he wishes he could go back to that pivotal moment in his life, Mike meets a magical janitor who causes him to drive into the water and come out his teenage self again. Yeah…strange but told with great conviction!

Mike at first thinks it’s his chance to become a collegiate athlete after all, but soon sees the problems his daughter with a frightening boyfriend and son always getting picked on deal with, and he grows as a person, deciding he’s back in their setting to help them. What happens after that manages to consistently be funny or moving – often both!

The movie did slightly better than 13 Going On 30 financially (at least at the box office – that’s not considering 13 Going On 30 coming out at a time when EVERYTHING made bank on DVD) but somewhat worse critically. Still, the reviews were hardly bad. The consensus was that Zac Efron’s easygoing charm helped make 17 Again work. Glad he continues to be an in-demand actor, a decade after his High School Musial costars’ fame has been suspended.

Note: The trailer I’m sharing is otherwise great, but acts as if the movie is set the year it came out, instead of two years earlier. A shot of a cell phone during the movie shows the film takes place in 2007, which makes sense considering the daughter Scarlet is pregnant with in 1989 is currently a high school senior.

Bottom Line: Fun fun!

Up Next: One last Freaky Friday.