Josh Bell
It’s right there in an early scene in director and co-writer Jillian Bell’s Summer of 69: a red brick building with some classical accents, instantly recognizable as a traditional American high school. In Summer of 69 (which premieres today on Hulu), it’s St. Bernadette, the private Catholic school attended by teen protagonist Abby (Sam Morelos). But it’s also been Miller High School in 2022’s Crush and Cook-Lynn High School in 2021’s Plan B. It’s stood in for schools in Southern California, New Jersey, and South Dakota. In real life, it was once the A.V. Zogg School, but now it’s simply American High.
That’s not just a generic designation for a frequently used filming location. It’s the name of the production company that has owned the school since 2017 and uses it as home base for a growing filmography of smart, sensitive teen comedies, most of which, like Summer of 69, premiere with relatively little fanfare as Hulu originals. Spearheaded by producer Jeremy Garelick, American High has built a modern version of John Hughes’ fictional Shermer, Illinois, in the Syracuse suburb of Liverpool, New York.
Only some of American High’s films take place in the actual Syracuse area, but they all capture the same Hughesian sense of distilled Americana, usually with a modern inclusiveness that repudiates Hughes’ reactionary tendencies. Not all of their movies are great, but the best American High movies are warm-hearted and open, taking teen problems seriously while celebrating the diversity of teen experiences and backgrounds. They often feature prominent queer characters, and they express the joy of queer teen life without minimizing the challenges.
“It’s a first-year college party — everyone’s gay,” says the colorfully named Vodka Heather (Zión Moreno) to newly out teen lesbian Hannah (Julia Lester) in 2024’s Prom Dates, in which Hannah and her straight best friend Jess (Antonia Gentry) frantically search for last-minute dream dates to their senior prom. In Crush, the exasperated track coach (Aasif Mandvi) acknowledges that “60 percent” of his teen athletes are queer, but admonishes them not to mix genders in their hotel rooms during an away meet anyway.
Crush is built around a lesbian love triangle — featuring Rowan Blanchard as a budding artist torn between twin sisters played by Auli’i Cravalho and Isabella Ferreira — with the straight characters relegated to the supportive-best-friend position. As in Prom Dates, the central friendship in Plan B is between a straight girl and a lesbian, and both movies show the unquestioned support for a friend’s coming out. In 2018’s Banana Split, the female main characters have such intense friend chemistry that they have to remind themselves (and the audience) that they’re actually straight.
Even in American High movies without queer characters, there’s a level of emotional vulnerability and genuine connection that offers an understated but clear reframing of teen-comedy tropes. The macho male bonding of 2019’s Big Time Adolescence may be subtly toxic for misguided teen Mo (Griffin Gluck), but it also originates from a place of honest affection on the part of stoner fuck-up Zeke (Pete Davidson). Zeke leads Mo down a path of drug dealing and general assholery, not because he’s taking advantage of the impressionable youngster, but because his own adult life is lonely and aimless.
There are always love interests in American High movies, but friendship is paramount. In that way, American High’s filmmakers understand a fundamental truth about being a teen that far too many teen movies either ignore or diminish: Crushes and romances may feel especially overwhelming at the time, but they tend to fade far more quickly than the deeper bonds of friendship. That message is explicit in Banana Split, starring co-writer Hannah Marks as a high school senior who befriends the new girlfriend of her recent ex. Nick (Dylan Sprouse) mostly sits on the sidelines as the movie focuses on the giddy rapport between Marks’ April and her ostensible rival Clara (Liana Liberato).
Big Time Adolescence’s Mo may need to leave Zeke behind in order to move ahead with his life, but other American High friendships seem built to last. At the end of Banana Split, it’s not Nick that the audience is rooting for April to make up with — it’s Clara. Just as the straight characters in Prom Dates and Plan B support their gay friends’ sexual awakenings, they’re equally onboard with more complicated challenges. Both of those movies follow the time-tested “one crazy night” teen-movie formula, but with more on their minds than just raunchy humor.
Plan B is heavier, following best friends Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) and Lupe (Victoria Moroles) in their quest to acquire a morning-after pill following Sunny’s ill-advised drunken tryst with a fellow high schooler. Director Natalie Morales (who also plays a supporting role in Summer of 69) balances serious considerations about women’s bodily autonomy with goofy road-trip comedy, never letting the social commentary get in the way of the humor, or vice versa.
Prom Dates is more vulgar, but it also frames its characters’ madcap adventure as a journey of understanding, especially for the shy Hannah. She doesn’t merely need to replace her planned male prom date with a female equivalent — she needs to learn about her own queer identity and what it means before she can jump into a new relationship. The filmmakers confound teen-movie expectations without denying their characters a happy ending. It’s not about Hannah and Jess finding new dates, but about them finding their way to each other as their authentic selves.
Along the way, though, there’s room for plenty of sex. Plan B’s Lupe may mock Sunny’s potential hook-up as “Disney Plus and thrust,” but there’s nothing sanitized about the presentation of sexuality in these movies. Many of the characters are inexperienced, but they’re eager to learn, and they enjoy it when they do. At one of their first get-togethers, Banana Split’s April and Clara giggle over Nick’s odd bedroom behavior, in a way that shows how much they both loved it. For the various American High virgins, the goal isn’t simply to have sex with anyone, but to experience physical intimacy with a person they truly care about (or at least think they do).
That desire for intimacy is the whole focus of Summer of 69, with the awkward Abby hiring local stripper Santa Monica (Chloe Fineman) to teach her about the titular sex act in anticipation of getting it on with her longtime crush Max (Matt Cornett). Santa Monica may seem just as seedy as Big Time Adolescence’s Zeke at first, but she proves to be a thoughtful mentor and true friend, who needs that meaningful interaction with another person just as much as Abby does.
That’s a hallmark of the best American High movies, which almost never have outright villains and extend their sensitivity even to traditional antagonists like would-be bullies and overbearing parents. Those parent characters may exist largely in the margins, but when they have their moments to assert themselves, they’re portrayed as real people with their own struggles. Actors like Megan Mullally, Jessica Hecht, and Jon Cryer make the most of their brief appearances as flawed but well-meaning parents just trying to do what’s best for their unpredictable teenagers.
Those teenagers are unpredictable within a specific, comforting framework, and American High movies understand when to subvert that framework and when to embrace it. There are climactic, heartfelt speeches in front of assembled classmates. There are genitals drawn on the faces of passed-out partygoers. There are third-act misunderstandings resolved with hurried declarations of affection.Yet none of it feels rote or phony when coming from these talented filmmakers and actors. In Plan B, Lupe cites the entirety of teen-movie history as a justification for throwing a party while Sunny’s mom is out of town. Like the creators at American High, she’s inspired by those familiar classics to make something purely her own.
