He seeks to find the one chick in his school with whom he can act out all of his most erotic, MTV-derivative fantasies. Enter Kaitlin Doubleday (Waiting…). She’s a sorority girl that has to do anything she can to stay in her house.
This includes participating in a pledge activity that requires her to make a gay guy fall in love with her – only so she can dump him the following week at a Greek party in order to pledge her allegiance to her sisters. Through a poorly executed misunderstanding, she and Clay wind up becoming friends and later falling for each other.
You’d think that in a project with such a great supporting cast as Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse), John Goodman (“Roseanne”) and Rachel Dratch (“Saturday Night Live”) that these actors would provide a fresh take on a rite of passage for so many young people. Instead, they each submit embarrassingly pedestrian performances.
Writer/director Ryan Shiraki’s sad little opus to his days as a student at Brown University would best be served as a cruel joke that he tells his friends in the locker room of his gym. The man was a producer at “Saturday Night Live” for eight years; you’d think he’d be capable of doing so much more with that legacy.
Freshman Orientation releases at the Regent Showcase (614 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles) Aug. 31.