'How to Talk to Girls at Parties' review: This is not the movie I was expecting it to be

Can someone please teach me how though?

Sometimes, with A24 films, you get The VVitch, Moonlight, The Florida Project or a hundred other gems. Sometimes, though, you get How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties — a title that is as overly complicated as the film itself — is from director John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole, Shortbus).

From the trailer, you might think it’s something that resembles Sing Street mixed with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It’s not. I don’t even know what other movies to compare How to Talk to Girls at Parties to.

Set in England during the 1980’s punk-rock scene, Enn (Alex Sharp) — which is short for Henry — is just an ordinary, everyday teenager of that time. He rides around on his bike with his buddies John (Ethan Lawrence) and Vic (Abraham Lewis), dresses in clothes that are way too baggy and sneaks into punk shows to get drunk and go off.

One night, however, the three of them push it a little too far. Looking for an after-party, they somehow wind up at a mansion that’s supposed to be abandoned but is actually home to a good number of strangely dressed people.

Figuring that they’re just Americans or something (one of the few jokes that actually works in this movie), they shrug it off and continue their partying inside.

That’s where Enn meets Zan (Elle Fanning) — a sharp young woman who has a pretty strange vocabulary and perspective on things, but also desperately wants to be taken out of this mansion and into the real world.

It doesn’t take long for the trio of guys to feel the same way, as this mansion and these people turn out to not be as cool as they initially thought.

Once out of the house, Zan spills the beans: they’re not Americans. They’re aliens, visiting from another world, taking in as much information about Earth as they possibly can.

Zenn has had enough of her fellow-space travelers, as there aren’t exactly encouraged to have their own experiences or even think for themselves. She’s ready to go see the world through her own eyes, and she wants Enn to be the one to show her.

So, the two set up, trying to find ‘the punk’ as Zan puts it, all while falling in love with the process.

Again, you’d never know any of that from the title How to Talk to Girls at Parties, as that makes this sound like some sleazy rom-com from the '90s that probably wouldn’t hold up in today’s #MeToo Movement.

While I don’t think this movie works together as a whole, like, at all, it’s still admirable that Mitchell wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of him telling a story that’s so unique and visualized.

I just wish someone taught him how to tell it better first.

The problem with How to Talk to Girls at Parties is that it tries so hard to be relevant, to be cool, to be weird and experimental and funny. In actuality, it can’t do any of those things, or at least, it can’t do them well.

Instead, this is a whole collection of scenes that are all trying to out-weird each other, without actually telling a coherent or interesting story.

For example, Nicole Kidman is in this movie. Don’t ask me why Nicole Kidman needed to be in this movie, but Nicole Kidman is in this movie. She plays this extreme punk-rocker who’s kind of in charge of the venue where Enn and his friends often frequent, and there isn’t a single line of dialogue that comes out of her mouth that actually makes the slightest bit of sense. 

There’s one moment that I swear reminded me of the breast cancer moment in “The Room,” where she’s having a completely normal conversation and then casually just blurts out that she’s now had twelve abortions, only for it to never come up again. That’s just one example. It only gets worse from there.

At times, How to Talk to Girls at Parties hints towards the funny coming-of-age movie that I think it initially set out to be. Joanna Scanlan, who plays Enn’s mother, actually gives a really funny and welcome performance, despite that she is only in the movie for maybe three minutes.

It all just gets so bogged down by these stupid alien subplots that we don’t care about or even make any sense.

Elle Fanning, who is still a very talented actress, can’t save it either as her character is essentially reduced to a fish-out-of-water for the entire film. While those first few gimmicks might work, it gets old quick and the movie keeps repeating it so many times that it began to drive me insane.

John Cameron Mitchell is really swinging for the fences with How to Talk to Girls at Parties which is something I believe that every filmmaker should always try to do — passive directing is never a good thing. Mitchell probably should have worked on his practice-swing and follow-through before stepping up to bat though, as this is a strikeout plain and simple. There are some fine ideas in How to Talk to Girls at Parties and a few moments that can actually work, but Mitchell is just trying to do so much here and the movie simply can’t support it all. While this thing only clocks in at 1 hour and 42 minutes long, it winds up feeling like an eternity.

That’s just my opinion though, you may feel a totally different way. Watch the trailer for How to Talk to Girls at Parties here and then let us know, in the comments below, what you thought about the film and what other A24 movies that are coming out soon you’re excited for!