Admirably aiming to recreate the feelings of newfound freedom and self-discovery that college inspires, Freshman Orientation never finds a way to successfully execute its good intentions.
Freshman Orientation (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:7
Rotten:14
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: This over-the-top comedy suffers from an exhaustive screenplay, which tries too hard to be funny…and fails.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: A typical Midwestern 18 year-old freshman at a large state university eager to delve the college party life, instead he discovers that school is not the beer-driven, sexual fantasy of his... A typical Midwestern 18 year-old freshman at a large state university eager to delve the college party life, instead he discovers that school is not the beer-driven, sexual fantasy of his imagination. Determined to do anything to obtain the girl of his dreams (a gorgeous but reluctant sorority girl), he decides to adopt a gay identity in order to insinuate himself in her life. This casual charade, however, quickly lands him in a morass of campus activism, gender warfare, fraternity hazes, sorority torture, "coming out" narratives, political martyrdom, and ultimately, a university-wide meltdown. [More]
Starring: Sam Huntington, Marla Sokoloff, Heather Matarazzo, Kaitlin Doubleday
Starring: Sam Huntington, Marla Sokoloff, Heather Matarazzo, Kaitlin Doubleday, Bryce Johnson, Jud Tyler, John Goodman, Rachel Dratch
Director: Ryan Shiraki
Director: Ryan Shiraki
Screenwriter: Ryan Shiraki
Producer: Dan Halsted, Stavros Merjos, Adam Rosenfelt
Composer: Tomandandy
Studio: Regent Releasing
Reviews for Freshman Orientation
You enter expecting something really stupid, and you wind up with something really clever . . . hysterical . . . wise.
A campus comedy with a dirty mouth, an innocent heart and a surprisingly wise mind, Freshman Orientation uses identity politics as a road to romance and emotional maturity. The naked breasts are a bonus.
The charms of this college gross-out comedy with a "message" are elusive.
Consider my two-star rating an indication that the film's Gut-Buster-to-Forehead-Slapper ratio is relatively even.
Freshman Orientation is not incompetently made. Nor is it badly acted. But there’s not a fresh idea in it, and everyone on screen seems to be in a different comedy.
Theatres showing it will likely have as many conspicuously empty seats as the classrooms and barrooms in this picture, which was apparently shot on such a shoestring that they couldn’t even get enough extras to fill a set.
...too often feels more like a tapped-out keg than a provocative romp.
A genderbending teensploit turning on a clever twist of the genre's trademark theme. For while most makeover movies feature a female making herself more attractive, this flick has a male deliberately doing the opposite.
Writer/director Ryan Shiraki certainly adds some youthful exuberance to his debut feature film, but it's all wasted on a tremendously misguided and exhaustively dim screenplay
There are other things to like about writer-director Ryan Shiraki’s college comedy, mainly that it feels more real than most... Just one problem: It isn’t particularly funny.
Freshman Orientation feels a bit like a missed opportunity. It's too bad the motion picture as a whole isn't as quirky and clever as its double-edged title.
Blessedly shrewd where it counts and deserves notice. The lessons develop naturally and aren't jammed down the viewer's throat like the hypocritical sermonizing in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
I was honored and privileged to say that I saw a film at Sundance that actually captured the fun of pretending to be gay to win a sorority sister.
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