Movie Review: A Millennial has her Coming of Age Moment — at 34 — “Scrambled”

It would be hard to understate how intensely lovable “Scrambled” is.

Writer, director and star Leah McKendrick has made a scruffy, raunchy, rough-and-ready comedy about a Millennial whose biological clock has been sped up to the point where she puzzles over past loves and realizes she has quite a pile of regrets and a limited supply of eggs — her own — at 34.

McKendrick invites mockery for a generation that’s become a cultural punching bag. But she slips in reasons, explanations and the occasional legit or lame excuse for this particular demographic’s struggles at this particular time in America’s history.

And while “Scrambled” has sympathy for at least some of its Millennial characters, it’s as close to a cinematic “self-own” as that much-maligned generation has ever given us.

We encounter Nelly (McKendrick) at a wedding, not her own but somehow her natural environment. Jewelry-making (“Nellery” wearables), hard-partying ditz Nelly is that take-a-bullet for the bride bridesmaid that every young woman wants on her wedding day — at least in TV and the movies.

Bride/bestie Sheila (Ego Nwodim) insists Nelly do “a shot” for her. She’s having the mother of all “I’m not a WIFE”” panic attacks of wedding day jitters. Sheila wants to know if Nelly would be content to have sex with the her groom and only her groom “for the rest of your life?” Sheila demands coke, and not the “diet” kind.

All Nelly has is “molly,” which she shares. Yes, she’d totally “do” that groom forever and ever, amen. Marriage or no marriage, she reassures Sheila, “We’re gonna stay like this forever!” And when she hears that the reason Sheila’s tripping is that she’s secretly pregnant, she makes her spit out that damned pill.

But that the fact that Nelly’s living through a parade of baby showers that has more or less replaced the procession of weddings she’s been invited to as her peers reach “that age” and some version of maturity, as anyone and everyone is consoling her over the recent-enough break-up with the beau everyone thought was “The One,” Nelly has to take stock.

“Your thirties” are supposed to be “just your twenties with money.” No, she doesn’t have any. And yes, she’s not yet 40 but there’s this “smorgasbord of sausage” she envisions as her near future, “all love in this club” and whatnot. But another friend at the wedding wakes her up to how hard it was to conceive after 40.

Her Irish-American Dad (Clancy Brown) is more tactless than her Latina Mom (Laura Ceró) about “I want GRANDkids” and when is she going to pop them out? Her wealthier douche bro older brother (Andrew Santino) is still in his dating-children phase, so it’s on her.

How can she make this all work out?

“I don’t even KNOW if I want kids! I’ve seen ‘Euphoria!'”

She will beg that richer sibling for the money to grow, harvest and freeze some of her eggs. Of course he’s considers that a loan with the eggs as collateral.

And our libidinous redhead will trip through bar pick-ups and hook-ups with exes — we’ve already seen a careless, condom-losing encounter with a waiter at the wedding — as she gives “plan A,” a “real baby” made the “real” way one or five more tries as she’s taking the shots and cooking those un-“Scrambled” eggs.

McKendrick, a perky actress/writer turned writer-director, serves up a colorful but mostly nameless series of exes, “types” and would-be baby daddies labeled “The Prom King” who peaked in high school, the hippy “Burning Man,” “The Cult Leader,””Peter Pan,” “The Nice Guy” who unloads on her callous mistreatment and dumping, and an instant “Nope.”

“My probation officer is SUPER chill” is that last “type’s” best line.

All along the way, as we hear of the dreams she had and the delusions she clings to — donning her prom dress and “high school goggles” to troll for ex-classmates, getting her “Britney” on to forget the wasted, indulgent years she’s blown through — Nelly is forced to take stock and “see” herself and diminishing “thirst trap” status.

And through it all, McKendrick makes this hot-but-cooling-off-fast mess an object of ridicule and pity, easy to judge, but just as easy to empathize with.

As a filmmaker/storyteller, McKendrick gives off an Amy Schumer generation Jennifer Westfeldt/Nicole Holofcener energy — funny, topical and biting.

“Scrambled” is not getting as wide a release as this “Bridesmaids Lite” comedy deserves. But there’s an amusing “voice of her generation” vibe in this have-her “sausage” and eat it too farce, a movie about growing up and facing adulthood, at long last, and better late than never less those unscrambled eggs go cold.

Rating:  R for sexual content, nudity, language throughout and some drug use.

Cast: Leah McKendrick, Ego Nwodim, Mimi Kennedy, Andrew Santino, Laura Ceró and Clancy Brown.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Leah McKendrick. A Lionsgate release.

Running time: 1:37

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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