THE sight of William H. Macy sporting a Jew-fro as a di vorced dad trying to help his nerdy son score with a prom date is among the myriad delights in the gut-bustingly funny “Bart Got a Room.”
First-time director Brian Hecker draws on his own experiences as a teenager in South Florida for this short and sweet comedy, which is overflowing with quirky little details that magnify the laughs.
The only thing funnier than Macy loudly simulating the sounds of lovemaking — to convince his son that the walls of his new bachelor pad are soundproof — is the look on the face of an elderly woman arriving to welcome him to the neighborhood.
Another newcomer, deft comic actor Steven J. Kaplan, stars as Macy’s son Danny, who is stringing along his childhood pal Camille (Alia Shawkat) as a possible prom date because he hopes to land the teasing shiksa beauty (Ashley Benson) with whom he carpools.
Danny’s newly divorced parents — an unrecognizable Cheryl Hines plays his mom, who is shacking up with the glad-
handing Jon Polito — are too self-preoccupied to help much with the dilemmas of Danny, who is being driven practically mad by his hormones.
But when Danny’s cheapskate dad learns that his son’s even nerdier classmate Bart has gotten a hotel room for prom-night high jinks, Dad pitches in with wildly inappropriate advice (sometimes in front of his horrified dates) and even a little money for a tux.
A series of disasters multiplies as prom night approaches, with Dad dutifully abandoning a steamy evening with his latest date (Jennifer Tilly) for a last-ditch effort to find an increasingly desperate Danny a date, any date.
Not many teen-sex comedies boast a big-band score (Danny is a trumpeter), and fewer still are so dimly lit they look more like a neo-noir.
Danny’s ’70s wardrobe looks like it came from the same thrift shop that supplied “Napoleon Dynamite,” and, rummaging through other decades, the filmmaker has thrown in references to “Goodbye, Columbus” and “Portnoy’s Complaint.”
Though ostensibly set in the present day, “Bart Got a Room” takes place in a charmingly goofy world all its own, complete with flamingos crossing the road.
BART GOT A ROOM
More laughs than “Superbad.”
Running time: 80 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexuality, profanity). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Kips Bay, the Loews Village.