American Pie

Year: 1999

Actors: Natasha Lyonne, Jennifer Coolidge, Tara Reid, Alyson Hannigan

Duration: 95 min

American Pie, set in the year 1999, focuses on a group of four close friends in their senior year at the fictional East Great Falls High School in west Michigan; Kevin Myers (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Chris "Oz" Ostreicher (Chris Klein), Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) and Paul Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), who is better known by his surname. Kevin is confident and charming and is dating his long-term girlfriend, Vicky Lathum (Tara Reid); Oz is a laid-back member of the high school lacrosse team; Jim is socially awkward and sexually naïve and suffers pressure and questionable advice from his father (Eugene Levy); while Finch is a cappuccino-drinking sophisticate who plays golf and wears sports jackets. The four have very differing personalities, but share a common characteristic; they are all virgins, in sharp contrast to popular lacrosse player and arrogant jock Steve Stifler (Seann William Scott), whose wild, extravagant house parties they are regularly invited to.While at one of Stifler's such parties, the four each attempt to score with various girls at the party with very limited success. Oz is humiliated by an older girl, Finch is too late for the party and Jim attempts to talk to Czechoslovakian exchange student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), but fails completely. Kevin receives fellatio from Vicky, but she overhears him complaining about it to Jim and promptly dumps him. The next morning, the four wake up hungover and depressed, to find ultra-nerd Chuck "Sherminator" Sherman (Chris Owen) seeing off a pretty girl, and are left shocked and frustrated when The Sherminator claims that he lost his virginity to her the same night. Kevin decides to take a stand and defiantly declares that the four will make a pact, to lose their virginity before the school prom and graduation. Later, while eating breakfast in a restaurant, they toast each other to 'the next step' and formulate individual plans to achieve sexual success.Kevin immediately sets out to win Vicky back, but has to work very hard to even get a chance with her, and begins to seek advice from others. Vicky's best friend Jessica (Natasha Lyonne) reveals to Kevin that, despite his thinking otherwise, Vicky has never felt an orgasm from Kevin, and that he has to work on that above everything else. His older brother Tom (Casey Affleck) then passes onto Kevin the secret of 'The Bible' - a manual of love and sex compiled by various East Great Falls students over several decades. Both Jessica and Tom divulge their advice only after Kevin stresses he wants to make Vicky happy, rather than simply taking advantage of her for his pact. Kevin finally seizes a chance to make things up with Vicky, and performs oral sex on her in her bedroom using his new techniques. Vicky experiences an intense orgasm and is driven wild by Kevin, winning him the promise of sex at the prom after-party in the process.Meanwhile, Oz joins the school's jazz choir in an effort to lose his stereotyped reputation as a muscleheaded lacrosse jock and find a loving girlfriend there. He is mocked relentlessly at first by his friends and the other choir members, but soon wins the attention of Heather (Mena Suvari), one of the choir singers who also suffers being stereotyped as a priss. She swiftly asks him out to the prom with her, but changes her mind upon seeing Stifler and his friends mocking her, and assuming Oz was doing the same. A desperate Oz volunteers to become lead vocalist alongside Heather to try and regain her trust. He succeeds when she catches him tirelessly rehearsing alone in the theatre, and pays him a visit after-hours at the sandwich bar he works at to reconcile. Their relationship is dealt another blow when Oz realizes his last ever lacrosse game for East Great Falls clashes with the choir competition, but a frustrated Oz decides to abandon the game halfway-through and rushes over to the music hall, where he makes it just in time. He performs the long-awaited duet with Heather to rapturous applause from the audience, including Kevin and Jim themselves.After Oz describes third base to Jim as "like warm apple pie", a curious Jim temporarily loses his sanity and has full missionary sex with a freshly-baked apple pie left on the table by his mother (giving the film its eponymous title). His father walks in on the act and is left stunned and disappointed by his son's actions. Now almost without hope, Jim has a stroke of luck when Nadia, seemingly at random, asks him if she can come round to his house and study with him. After dropping the crucial detail that she'll be coming straight from ballet practice and will need to change, Stifler persuades Jim to set up a webcam in his room so that they can all watch Nadia stripping together over the internet. Upon Nadia's arrival, Jim sets up the webcam and dashes across the street to join Kevin and Finch at Kevin's house. Against expectation, an almost-naked Nadia discovers Jim's pornography collection and begins to passionately masturbate on his bed, causing a riotous reaction from Stifler, Kevin and Finch on the other end, as well as Stifler's young brother Matt (Eli Marienthal).Kevin and Finch force Jim to go back and seduce her while the moment lasts, which ends with Nadia forcing Jim to strip and dance for her while she reads his pornography. By now, various groups of East Great Falls seniors, including members of Blink 182, are watching the live action in excited anticipation, as Sherman reveals that Jim accidentally addressed the webcam link to everybody in the entire school directory. Nadia then seduces Jim and sits him down next to her on the bed, but unfortunately, he prematurely ejaculates, disappointing Nadia and completely grossing out his live web audience. A desperate Jim pleads for Nadia not to go and wins her around, but when Nadia takes her panties off, he involuntarily ejaculates again upon touching her clitoris. Nadia swiftly exits, leaving Jim a nervous wreck.The next day, Jim has become the laughing stock of the entire high school and is left despondent and depressed, especially upon hearing that Nadia has been immediately sent back home to Czechoslovakia by her sponsors after the incident. However, he senses luck when unpopular band geek Michelle Flaherty (Alyson Hannigan) randomly begins to talk to him. Upon revealing she knows nothing about the webcam incident, he seizes the opportunity to ask her out to the prom with him, which she gleefully accepts.Finch at first appears to have no plan, but Kevin's suspicions arise when corroborative rumours begin flying around the school that Finch has legendary sexual prowess, has had relations with older women, and that he even knocked out Stifler in a fight. Kevin investigates and discovers that Finch paid Jessica $200 to spread the rumours under the pretense of truth. Finch quickly becomes the most talked-about and most awe-inspiring senior in the whole school, with hordes of girls desperate to go to the prom with him. However, Stifler, angry about the rumours against him, spikes Finch's mochaccino with laxatives, and promptly dupes him into using the girls' restroom, where Finch suffers explosive diarrhea in the presence of several senior girls. Afterwards, he emerges to a torrent of mockery, laughter and abuse from a hysterical crowd of seniors, with Stifler at the helm, and is left humiliated, broken and completely dateless.The prom night finally comes around. Finch is the only one of the four who attends alone, but Jessica, also alone and feeling guilty for taking his money, offers to dance with him, even giving him a brand new hip flask as a gift for his troubles. The prom itself is cheap, tacky and uneventful and derided by most of the students, but a cocky, bragging Kevin sees it as a good time to query his friends for a "status check" on their pact. Oz and Finch are disinterested, and a burnt-out Jim lets loose and rages at Kevin for causing all the pressure, insisting that sex isn't at all as important as they previously made out. The outburst shatters Kevin's bravado and makes him wonder whether things will truly go as planned between him and Vicky. However, their spirits are all collectively lifted, when Chuck Sherman's partner at the prom gets up onto the stage and announces in front of everybody that Chuck is a liar and is actually still a virgin. Chuck wets himself in embarrassment, and the four boys excitedly catch the bus to Stifler's huge post-prom party at his mansion on Lake Michigan.As the party begins to gain traction, the four boys all individually fulfill their pact with almost no conscious effort. Kevin and Vicky go to an upstairs bedroom where they finally have sex for the first time, but their desires for perfection and timing cause the interaction to become rigid and awkward throughout. While walking along the lakeside, an emotional Oz confesses the pact to Heather, who becomes wary, but he renounces the pact and declares that he's already won just by being with her at the prom. They passionately embrace each other at the dockside, naturally and fluidly moving into their first sexual experience. Meanwhile, Jim is snoozing through Michelle's immature band camp stories, but chokes on his drink when she reveals she knows more about orgasms than she's letting on. Michelle leads him upstairs, where she reveals she actually knew all along about the webcam incident, only accepting Jim's date because he was a "sure thing". Jim finally gets to have disaster-free sex, but Michelle is dominant and violently aggressive, shouting abuse at Jim, roughing him up and smashing things up with her hands and feet out of sheer passion. Finally, a bored Finch wanders around restricted areas of the house and bumps into Stifler's mom (Jennifer Coolidge), whose aura and natural beauty takes him aback. After some sophisticated, upper-class conversation and flirting, she becomes aroused by Finch's precociousness, and they proceed to make love on the snooker table as the party goes on through the night.Dawn breaks early the next morning over Stifler's mansion, which is littered with sleeping seniors. Oz watches the sun rise with a smile as Heather snuggles into his lap at the lakeside, the couple looking extremely content. Kevin and Vicky are also awake, but both are contemplative and neither seem happy. Vicky amicably breaks up with Kevin, citing their separation due to their choice of university and the physical distance it causes, a topic she discussed earlier with Jessica. Kevin is left saddened, but accepts Vicky's reasoning. Meanwhile, Jim wakes up and goes to cuddle Michelle in bed, only to find himself hugging an inflatable toy shark with no Michelle in sight. He quickly realizes Michelle used and abused him for a sordid one night stand, but is left brimming with happiness at how cool the prospect of being used is. Finally, Finch is asleep with Stifler's mom when a hungover Stifler enters the room; he is so shocked at the sight that he collapses and passes out.Later on, Kevin, Oz, Jim and Finch all go to their favorite hang-out restaurant, the fittingly-named "Dog Years", for breakfast. Far from celebrating their pact with stories, they all remain very conservative and hushed about their experiences the night before, with Oz gleefully refusing to even confirm whether he had sex or not. Regardless, the four lads are now collectively happier than they ever were before, and once again toast each other to 'the next step' as they prepare to leave high school and move away to university.The film ends with Jim setting up his webcam in his room once again, and stripping and dancing to country music. Nadia is on the other end, back in her home country, smiling and laughing at Jim. His father walks in on the act, but sees the funny side. He walks out and starts dancing down the corridor, presumably to make love to his wife, as he seductively mutters "sweetheart!".

Genre: Action   Comedy   Romance