Plan B and Party Sound Design
You can actually hear your suspension of disbelief, which is the problem.
DESPITE my boyish good looks, I’m not a kid any more. But I still have a weird soft spot for ribald teen comedies. A good teen comedy combines a couple of simple ingredients: Cultural signifiers that root the story in the current zeitgeist1, flattering its audience that their experience is the most important thing in the universe; a sense of possibility, implying that anything might happen if you just walk out your front door and go to that party2; and, finally, a lot of sex and bodily function jokes, because we’re talking about kids here.
I’m too old for that to work on me now, but I still remember that feeling of belonging, that sense that a movie like Better Off Dead or Fast Times at Ridgemont High was made for me, and that feeling that my own life could suddenly become a hilarious series of misadventures if only I dragged myself out of my room. And so as the years pass I can still get down with a solid teen comedy, from Project X to Booksmart. I may have to reach back ever further into my memory to remember what it was like to be 17 and dissatisfied3, but I can still do it, and a funny movie is a funny movie.
Plan B is a Hulu Original directed by Natalie Morales and starring Victoria Moroles as Lupe and Kuhoo Verma as Sunny. In a neat twist on the traditional teen comedy subject of getting laid and/or wasted, Lupe and Sunny set off their hilarious shenanigans when Sunny has desperation sex with a boy at her party and discovers that the condom slipped off, necessitating a Plan B morning-after pill. When their local small-town pharmacist (a member of what Sunny describes as the local “Indian Mafia”) cites the state’s “conscience clause” and refuses to give her the pill, the duo set off to the nearest Planned Parenthood, which is hours away4.
It might not sound like the setup to a hilarious movie, but it is. The film does a great job of balancing Lupe and Sunny’s funny conversations about sex and drugs, their standard teen comedy misadventures, and the infuriating reality for young women in a world where every avenue to responsible birth control is closed off to you while the asshole who got you pregnant has one conversation with Jesus and decides he’s forgiven5.
But I’m not here to talk about the film’s politics or even it’s effectiveness in exploring the dilemma of a world where women are punished for sexual behavior. I’m here to talk about sound mixing and party scenes.
What?
In 1989, I went to see the film Say Anything, which I really enjoyed and still love. One aspect of the film that struck me at the time was the accuracy of the party scene—although Present Day Jeff is more disturbed by the fact that the party, a post-graduation rager, is an annual event hosted by Vahlere, played by Eric Stoltz. Stoltz was 28 at the time, and Vahlere was obviously an adult hosting a hundred horny underage kids at his house, handing out beers. Heck, the school’s guidance counselor even shows up at the party. This is kind of fucked up, if you think about it, which I didn’t at the time6.
But the party scene is remarkable because everyone actually acts like they’re at a party. They can’t hear each other over the music. They lean in to hear better, and misunderstand. Even if they go to a quieter spot, you can still hear the party pretty clearly.
Most films portray raging parties (and nightclubs, concerts, and other events) as weirdly quiet affairs. You’re supposed to believe that the music is pounding and people are scream-talking, but the actors can speak at normal levels and be heard perfectly. On the one hand, I understand why this is a thing: It’s exhausting to listen to people scream-talk over music. On the other hand, it always pulls me out of the story, because it’s ridiculously inaccurate and unrealistic. I have personally agreed to several terrible bargains simply because I couldn’t understand what was being said at a party, and those bargains haunt me to this day7. When I see a pair of actors whispering during a supposedly insane party I am distracted.
Plan B is even worse than this, though, because at several moments during its party scenes the music and buzz of conversation drops away almost completely. Like, characters will start talking and suddenly someone turns off the speaker and everyone starts using sign language. It’s not handled as device, it feels very much like the filmmakers just wanted to ensure you could hear the dialog, and this was the easiest way to do that. Also, the clumsiest.
It’s weird. And a lesson to anyone aspiring to tell a story: Your audience will accept a wide range of unrealistic things, but they always see the lazy.
D for Effort
Look, we’ve all been to at least one crowded, sweaty, substance-soaked party in our lives, and so we all know that normal conversation is impossible. And the thing is, miming that environment is kind of easy. Aside from some bare-bones body language—the aforementioned lean-in, shouting in each other’s ears—you don’t need perfect silence to let the dialog ring. What’s weird about Plan B’s approach is how the music and crowd noise simply ... vanishes8. One moment Sunny is navigating a crowd of drunk parasites. The next she’s in the bathroom and she might as well have stepped into a whole new dimension, because there’s no noise at all. And as anyone who has ever shared a wall with an apartment hosting a rager can tell you, a privacy door on a bathroom isn’t going to block the noise of a hundred drunks screaming at each other9.
This sort of stuff pulls people out of a story, whether they’re consciously aware of it or not. You know those moments in a horror movie:
“Listen! Hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly.”
That trope works because human beings are keyed into our environment, often in subliminal ways. Changes like the volume dropping off when two characters start talking may not register consciously, but they do register, and it bothers me. And now, maybe, it bothers you!10
Was this essay just a long-winded way of saying that while Plan B was a funny movie, the title of World’s Most Realistic Party Scene remains Say Anything? Maybe. It also serves as a demonstration of why I am no longer invited to parties at all.
Next: This Is Us ... no, really.
As best as I can tell using my expert writer senses, the best way to let people know you understand how 2021 works is to have at least one character vape constantly.
Of course, in my dotage the idea that “anything can happen” if I just walk out my front door is now a reason not to walk out my front door.
The being 17 part. Being dissatisfied requires no soul searching whatsoever.
The Conscience Clause is a real thing, and it is just as infuriating as you imagine it to be.
Seriously, the casual way the potential father of Sunny’s potential baby basically just high-fives Buddy Jesus and wipes his hands of the whole sordid incident is both hilarious and infuriating and underscores why religious people are the Worst.
The list of things Jeff Didn’t Think About at The Time is long and depressing, and definitely includes the ramifications of wearing a flannel shirt everywhere, all the time, even in the summer.
Trust me when I say that being an introvert who nods in agreement whenever he’s flustered has not worked out for me. At all.
To be fair, this did happen to me once at a party, but as it turns out I hadn’t developed superhuman hearing and the ability to time travel. I had simply imbibed an entire bottle of Everclear with predictable results.
Fun fact: Indoor privacy doors are hollow, and it is incredibly easy to put your head through one. Don’t ask how I know.
Jeff Somers: Spreading Irritation since the 1970s.