Bart Got a Room is one weird Twilight Zone of a teen movie -- with a retro vibe straight out of American Graffiti or The Wonder Years, betrayed only by the fact that all the kids have cellphones.
It's set in a palpably hot, crumbling-at-the-edges part of Hollywood, Florida, where kids still date and the prom is still an ohmygod right of passage just this side of a bar mitzvah (a fair enough analogy, since many of the main characters are Jewish).
We don't even meet the title character -- supposedly the nerdiest kid in school -- until the last act, and then only briefly. But his significance lies in the fact that this notorious schlemiel not only has a date for the prom, he's booked a room for the hoped-for prom-night consummation.
Meanwhile, our hero Danny (Steven Kaplan) is obsessed with finding just the right date for the most important night of his life. So blinded is he with this obsession, that he blows off his lifelong best friend and natural choice, Camille (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat).
The bulk of Bart Got a Room is thus devoted mainly to Danny's agonizing over (and messing up his chances with) various "better" alternatives -- including a blond cheerleader (Ashley Benson) who apparently gives mixed sexual signals by the way she eats ice cream, an Asian girl who will only agree to go if they aren't actually seen together (Brittney Winton) and a "party girl."
Slapping him upside the head over his every wrong move is his best friend Craig (Jonah Hill doppelganger Brandon Hardesty), a "ladies man" despite being an overweight slacker who spends all day lying in his parents' pool working on his prom tan.
What saves this mess of hoary cliches to some extent is the contribution of William H. Macy as Danny's desperately single "Jewfro"-wearing "swinger" dad, who takes it upon himself to rescue his son from the ranks of loserdom he seems to be joining himself (would you believe Plan C would be taking a hooker to the prom?).
All this, while Danny's mom (Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines) appears ready to unenthusiastically "settle" for a boorish suitor.
There is a genuinely heartwarming ending to Bart Got a Room, fueled entirely by the chemistry between Macy and Hines, that is almost worth the parade of contrivances that leads us there.
The high school scenes are unpleasant, mostly a bunch of minor humiliation setpieces (example: A girl on the prom committee runs out of the room crying when her suggested "theme" is unenthusiastically received)
When we get to the prom, the music sounds like nothing you'd ever hear at one. In fact, I'd be surprised if any actual teenagers in the year 2009 found any reference points in Bart Got a Room relevant to their own existence.
(This film is rated PG)
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