All The Fine Boys

Review by Donna Herman
March 7, 2017

As a reviewer, I get a press release giving me the pitch to come see the play. So I get a general idea of what the play is about and who is involved. In the case of All the Fine Boys, the spiel goes like this: "Fourteen-year-old best friends Jenny (Abigail Breslin) and Emily (Isabelle Fuhrman) are hungry for knowledge and experience, and in suburban South Carolina in the late '80s, experience is readily found with older boys. Emily chooses her senior crush from the high school play (Alex Wolff), and Jenny, a man she's seen at her family's church (Joe Tippett)... Erica Schmidt's All the Fine Boys dives...into the complications of sexual awakening and the first painful gasps of adulthood." Sounds like a John Hughes movie to me, but I'm game.

The play opens with a scene between Jenny and Emily that establishes them as besties. Jenny has lived in town all her life and Emily has only been there for a year. Both are on the hormonal roller coaster ride that has them believing they are adults and ready for everything at one moment and uncertain and afraid of themselves and everyone else the next. Where Jenny is louder and brasher, Emily is more reserved and a little less assured. They are on the outskirts of the cool crowd and in fact, Emily's house is regularly tp'd overnight. And, simply because she's developed faster than other girls, the word "slut" has been written in her driveway in shaving cream.

After the first scene, we never see Jenny and Emily together again. The following scenes are all played between each girl and her crush. Jenny and Joseph, the inappropriate 28 year-old nuclear technician she met at a church party of her father's; and Emily and Adam, the 17 year-old high school senior.

The two girls have the predictable experiences. Emily, who flirts with a "safe" sort of classmate, gets her heart broken. We can see why. Adam, portrayed pitch perfectly by Alex Wolff, is charming and irresistible in a smug, pseudo-intellectual way designed to sweep naïve girls off their feet. Jenny, who goes off with someone even he says is a stranger to her, gets a lot more than just her heart broken. Early in the first scene between Joseph and Jenny, they're both sitting on opposite ends of his couch and she leans over in what she thinks is a seductive pose and says "I think I know what's going to happen with us, don't you?" No crystal ball is necessary here, everyone but Jenny knows what's going to happen. And it's not going to be good.

Which brings me to the main problem with All the Fine Boys. Why did Erica Schmidt feel compelled to tell this story? It's not a new one. It's been told many times before. No new insights into motivation or character on either side. Why set it in the 1980's as opposed to any other time? There was nothing, except perhaps the lack of cell phones, that made the plot work any better than setting it in the current time. And there were some thin parts in the plot. Don't get me wrong, it's not badly written, the characters are fully developed, there's some humor, there's some dramatic tension. But in the end, I just couldn't see the point.

I will say that the performances were excellent. Abigail Breslin, and Isabelle Fuhrman, who I had a hard time buying as young girls in the first scene together, had me convinced by the end. There's nothing like the presence of a good-looking man to turn a woman into a simpering fool. Sigh. That's an age-old story. Oft told.

(Donna Herman)

"Starring Abigail Breslin as Jenny, Erica Schmidt's 'All the Fine Boys' is a not-quite-coming-of-age tale — part romantic comedy, part thriller, with a little bit of an indie-drama vibe."
Ben Brantley for New York Times

"Like the script, acting rarely rings true in a work that can't pick a point of view — satire, dark comedy, cautionary drama, Lifetime tale? Who knows."
Joe Dziemianowicz for New York Daily News

"While this is hardly virgin territory, there's a stinging authenticity to their awkward interactions that's alternately hilarious and horrifying."
Raven Snook for Time Out New York

"The female leads are unconvincing as adolescents in this shallow, would-be shocking play."
Frank Scheck for Hollywood Reporter

External links to full reviews from popular press...

New York Times - New York Daily News - Time Out - Hollywood Reporter