The media has been accustomed to seeing Adam Sandler for years, whether it be for his part in various comedies or for his iconic clothing style. But in the new Netflix movie “You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” a different Sandler takes on the lead role.
In this book to movie adaptation, Stacy Friedman, played by Adam’s youngest daughter, Sunny Sandler, has just entered the seventh grade. She and her best friend Lydia, played by Samantha Lorraine, have been looking forward to their bat mitzvahs for their entire lives and have promised to make them the best ones in their grade.
When junior high popularity, and Stacy’s boy crush Andy, get in the way of their friendship, their epic mitzvah plans start to go south.
The recipe for this movie is pretty basic, yet that’s what makes it so relatable. Sure, the plotline of teen BFF drama might be overdone, but I’m sure most people have gone through similar conflicts in middle school.
I couldn’t even be mad at the secondhand embarrassment I got every time Stacy did anything because I knew my seventh-grade self would’ve said or done the same cringe things as her.
The outfits and set designs weren’t as bad as expected. Some movies over do it while trying to personalize Gen Z characters, writing them in to say every single slang word or phrase the millennial scriptwriters know. The costume department fails by not doing enough research and putting them in clothes that look like a futuristic version of what teens these days actually wear.
But in this movie, Stacy was dressed in casual, colorful clothing you’d see on display at your local Urban Outfitters, which was perfect for a 13-year-old who is trying to come off as older than she is. Even supporting characters like Andy, who wore loose-fitted clothing to capture the “skater boy” look, were wearing outfits I’ve seen the middle schoolers of today wear.
Stacy’s bedroom was filled with poster collages of popular musicians like Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa and HAIM. There were those fake green vines hanging from her walls, the ones you can buy in bulk off of Amazon that I’m confident almost every Gen Z girl has or had in their room at some point in their adolescence.
The best part about this movie, though, was how the entire Sandler family was involved. For her first major role, Sunny had decent comedic timing, and with more experience and age, she could probably be just as well-known as her dad.
Adam’s oldest daughter, Sadie, played Stacy’s know-it-all sister, Ronnie. Adam played the smaller role of their father, Danny, and after years of making brief appearances in his other movies, his real-life wife, Jackie, played Lydia’s mother.
This movie wasn’t the classic Adam Sandler comedy that I expected when I saw it trending on social media, but it was nice to see the comedy legend start passing the spotlight onto his daughters.
