A sweet surprise

Since the dawn of youth culture, when it was first determined that adolescents were not to be trusted to play themselves, teens on screens have been glamorized or caricaturized, stripped of complexity and much of their clothes and prevailed upon to do things like violate baked goods in order to best advertise their sex-crazed adolescent bona fides to the world.

As amusing as this kind of thing can be, it can also be alienating to the currently and formerly young. It was, in fact, the overwhelming bogusness that inspired Seth Rogen to write a comedy with his childhood friend Evan Goldberg, something that would reflect the experiences of real kids like them. By the time “Superbad” went into production about a decade later, Rogen was past the age at which he could credibly play the character of Seth, a high school senior on the eve of graduation, and the role went to his buddy and “Knocked-Up” cohort, Jonah Hill. Not that the passage of time made a difference -- the movie’s appeal leaps across generations in a single bound. As Hill recently said in an interview, “Superbad” is not a teen movie, it’s a movie about young people. Wide-eyed and sincere as it is hilariously, unrepentently profane, the movie aims to express what it’s like to stare down the barrel of your first foray into adulthood, and it’s not afraid to be honest about it. It’s the opposite of teensploitation. Were it to appear as an SAT question, it would be to “American Pie” what the collected works of John Hughes are to the “Porky’s” trilogy.

What with everyone so focused on the raunchiness, though, it comes as a complete surprise to find that “Superbad” is in fact a love story. High-strung, impulsive Seth (Hill) and shy, gentle Evan (the gifted Michael Cera) are days away from graduating from high school. It will be their last summer before Evan goes off to college on the opposite coast. Evan has been accepted at Dartmouth, while Seth will be staying behind at a nearby state school. Their impending separation combined with their sudden rift in status is taking a toll on the relationship, though neither friend is capable of articulating the problem or admitting to the separation anxiety. The mounting tension between them is exacerbated by the fact that Evan may be sharing a room at college with their mutual friend, the über-nerd Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), whom Seth fears will somehow supplant him in Evan’s life.

When Seth unexpectedly lands an invitation to a graduation party hosted by the beautiful Jules (Emma Stone), he tries to impress her by volunteering to pick up all the alcohol. He plans to pull off this feat with the help of Fogell’s brand-new fake I.D. For Seth, the chance to be Jules’ hero represents his only chance (he thinks) to make her his girlfriend. For Evan, making good on his promise to bring Becca (Martha MacIsaac) the bottle of gold-flake vodka she requested is the only way he can think of to let her know how much he likes her.

Things start going wrong from the moment Fogell returns from the local counterfeiter with a Hawaiian driver’s license featuring a ridiculous uni-name (“McLovin”) and ludicrous date of birth, however, and the night gives itself over to a series of escalating disasters. Embarking on a late-night odyssey, an epic journey that takes them from the liquor store to Jules’ house, through all manner of perilous encounters with thugs and weirdos, drunks and coke heads, and women who are way more uninhibited than they can handle, the lifelong best friends begin confronting their fears, confessing their feelings, experiencing catharsis and growing up. (Almost.) Meanwhile, Fogell has the night of his life in the company of two wildly reckless cops played by Rogen and Bill Hader.

Physically, Hill and Cera recall the classic comic duos -- Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Aykroyd and Belushi. But they are contemporary kids, sophisticated and sensitive to nuance. Seth might be very interested in porn, but you couldn’t really call him obsessed. His approach to finding the right site to subscribe to is too studious and dispassionate for that. He’s frantic, but he’s not manic -- he’s just determined, as a guy who knows his heart is about to be broken, to do everything in his power to stave it off. Neither sad-sack nor straight man, Cera’s Evan is almost surreally lovable and completely unaware of his effect on others. In an early scene, he and his home-ec partner, a Japanese underclassman named Miroki (Roger Iwata), carry on like Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke in a domestic reverie. But this sort of behavior brings no threat of humiliation -- the rest of the class is impervious, while Seth looks on at them longingly. Becca has been trying (and failing) to let Evan knows she likes him, but he is too unsure of himself to do anything but try to save face. When she asks what he did over the weekend, he invents an elaborate social whirlwind. When she offers, “I’d love to do that sometime,” he enthusiastically replies, “Yeah, I mean, who wouldn’t?”

“Superbad” was produced by Judd Apatow, and his influence is evident. But unlike his recent megahits “Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” not to mention other recent buddy comedies such as “Blades of Gory,” the movie doesn’t require the suspension of disbelief that more high-concept comedies do. As wild and action-packed as it is, the film is at its core the emotionally realistic story of a relationship.

In many ways, it feels more fundamentally aligned with the work of “Superbad” director Greg Mottola. Mottola directed the gem-like “The Daytrippers” in 1996 before turning to TV, where he worked on the late, great “Arrested Development” (in which Cera played the awkward George Michael Bluth) and Apatow’s college comedy “Undeclared.” While Apatow writes some of the funniest comedies around, Mottola has a gift for delivering the whole, complex package. His comedy is character- rather than situation-based, and he has an exhilarating knack for portraying the dynamics of relationships under stress. Like “The Daytrippers,” “Superbad” zeros in on the turning point, stretching it out over one long night (or day, as was the previous case). His grasp of the coming-of-age story as the severing of adolescent (or immature) ties is exceptionally clear-eyed and visceral. Less evident from his previous work is his talent for directing chase scenes, which he does like a pro.

As for the movie’s much-discussed crudeness -- it seems that every summer a new comedy beats another recent comedy in recorded instances of what the MPAA so coyly calls “language,” and every summer the media pounces. (See also: “Wedding Crashers,” “Borat,” etc.) I guess we know an angle when we see one, because nothing else explains this endlessly recurring, suspiciously disingenuous collective surprise at the role of profanity in picaresque comedy -- you’d think that after at least four centuries we’d be used to it by now.

In light of this, I hope it’s not damning the movie with the wrong kind of praise to say that for a film so deliriously smutty, “Superbad” is supercute.

carina.chocano@latimes.com

MPAA rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image -- all involving teens. Running time 1 hour 54 minutes. In general release.