The To Do List – review

Raucous teen movies about sex and losing your virginity are almost all made from a male perspective: the high-school nerds of yesteryear grow up into stars with TV and movie careers, keen to alchemise their unfunny youth into nostalgic comedy gold. But this fleetingly entertaining film presents the woman's. Now it's a girl getting a piece of the American pie. Comedy writer and Funny or Die stalwart Maggie Carey writes and directs – there's a role for her husband Bill Hader – and Aubrey Plaza plays high-school graduate Brandy, an academic overachiever and virgin keen to tick off various sex experiences on her uptight to-do list before arriving at college. At 29, Plaza is arguably a smidge old for this role, but the problem is more her elaborately deadpan style that signals an ironic worldly knowingness – cutting against the supposed naivety of her character. A few laughs.