Disney+ 'Prom Dates : Canadian D.J Mausner highlights 'messy,' 'raunchy' and 'weird' parts of teenage girlhood
Starring "Ginny & Georgia" actor Antonia Gentry and Julia Lester from "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series," the film draws from Mausner's friendships
Award-winning Canadian comedian D.J Mausner has taken us back to high school with the new film Prom Dates (on Disney+ in Canada). Directed by Kim O. Nguyen (Never Have I Ever), starring Ginny & Georgia's Antonia Gentry, and Julia Lester from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, the teen comedy is the first feature film Mausner has ever written.
"My thought was, what do I know most about, so I can write from that perspective and the experience be true, and I'm very lucky to have some long standing, wonderful friendships in my life, my two childhood best friends," Mausner explained to Yahoo Canada. "I wanted to draw on our experiences."
"I think there's a thought behind, or at least there was for a while, that a feminist movie was responsible young ladies letting loose. And my thought to that was, nope. My friends and I were menaces to society. Yes, I was on student council, but we were also ... telling our parents we were having a sleepover and then sneaking out and egging someone's house, or jumping a fence in a jean mini-dress and ripping my leg open. All of those stupid things. And I wanted to hone in on that experience of teen girlhood that is messy and raunchy and weird."
Watch Prom Dates on Disney+ with plans starting at $7.99/month
What is 'Prom Dates' about
Best friends Jess (Gentry) and Hannah (Lester) made a prom pact, a blood oath, at 13 to have the best prom dates. Now in their last year of high school, the teens are determined to uphold their agreement.
But just before prom, Jess finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her, while Hannah is dating Greg (Kenny Ridwan), but she actually has a crush on her schoolmate Angie (Terry Hu), and hasn't come out as a lesbian yet.
The clock is ticking, and Jess and Hannah only have one night of complete havoc to find the ultimate prom dates.
Moving into the surreal, creating a 'caricature' of real teen girl moments
Much of the story really rests on believing the friendship between Jess and Hannah, with Mausner making sure that they have a specific "shorthand."
"My two friends are like two stunning beautiful femmes who dress incredibly well, and when we're together we're like, 'You want to rip ass?' We say stupid, insane sh-t to each other," Mausner highlighted. "I wanted there to be that kind of insular vernacular that is so common in female friendships."
"I wanted these people to sound real. There's nothing worse than tuning into a TV show where someone's written, 'Hashtag incredible, I'm OMG-ing about the sloppy joes in the cafeteria today.' I didn't want it to feel like they were talking from a different time."
Watch Prom Dates on Disney+ with plans starting at $7.99/month
But while working to ground this friendship in reality, Mausner also pushes the comedy boundary into more outrageous elements. For example, a character we meet as Jess is trying to land a prom date who only speaks Italian, and unbeknownst to Jess, he's talking about her being a human sacrifice.
"I wanted to splash into the surreal a little bit," Mausner said. "I don't think I'm reinventing the wheel, I just want a fun movie that people are going to enjoy, but there were elements that I wanted to kind of crank up a little bit more, like Harold & Kumar style."
"I wanted to make a caricature out of real moments that teen girls have and it is absolutely a real moment as a teen girl, when you meet a guy at a party and you're like, 'This could either be a crush and the love of my life, or he could murder me.' ... So wanting to play with that and also dancing on the edge of that, to where Jess is ultimately like, 'I thought that he was either going kill me or we have incredible chemistry, so I wanted to find out.' And similar to Hannah, I wanted her to have basically a condensed version of a coming out story. Kissing a girl for the first time, going out with a girl, those kinds of things. It was important to me to ratchet that up."
