In Sweet, Funny 'Good Boys,' Tweens Don't Lose Their Innocence — They Just Misplace It
What could have been a cringeworthy misfire of tweens fumbling toward sex instead turns into a winning comedy that gets the sweetness-to-raunch ratio miraculously right.
Since reconfigured 20 years ago, the modern sex comedy has abided by a tacit formula. Call it the sweetness-to-raunch ratio. It would be completely unacceptable for comedies about woefully inexperienced dudes to be about their single-minded pursuit of gratification, so it has to be cut with material about friendship or the tender feelings they can access in vulnerable moments. And age is the key factor: the younger the dudes, the more can be as raunchy as it likes, but the STR ratio changes with and which have many more scenes of teenage boys bonding over their shared ineptitude or treating girls with kindness when no one is looking.
