EuroTrip

EuroTrip

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jeff Schaffer
Uncredited:
Alec Berg
David Mandel
Produced by Alec Berg
David Mandel
Daniel Goldberg
Jackie Marcus
Joe Medjuck
Written by
  • Jeff Schaffer
  • Alec Berg
  • David Mandel
Starring
Music by James L. Venable
Cinematography David Eggby
Edited by Roger Bondelli
Production
company
Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures
Release dates
  • February 20, 2004 (2004-02-20)
Running time
 92 minutes
Country United States
Czech Republic
Language English
French
Dutch
Slovak
German
Italian
Budget $25 million[1]
Box office $20,796,847[1]

EuroTrip is a 2004 American-European teen comedy adventure film written by Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer, and directed by Schaffer. The film stars Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester, and Jessica Boehrs. Mechlowicz portrays Scott "Scotty" Thomas, an American teenager who travels across Europe in search of his German pen pal, Mieke (Boehrs). Accompanied by his friend Cooper (Pitts) and siblings Jenny and Jamie (Trachtenberg and Wester), Scott's quest takes him to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bratislava, Berlin, and Rome, encountering awkward and embarrassing situations along the way. The film received a 2004 Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Your Parents Didn't Want You to See.

Plot

The film begins in Hudson, Ohio, where Scott "Scotty" Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend, Fiona (Kristin Kreuk), immediately after his high school graduation in 2004. With his best friend, Cooper Harris (Jacob Pitts), Scott attends a graduation party that evening and listens to a performance of the film's main theme song "Scotty Doesn't Know", which crudely details the affair Fiona was having with the band's singer, Donny (Matt Damon), while she was with Scott. Drunk and angry, Scott returns home and receives an e-mail reply from his German pen pal, Mieke (Jessica Boehrs), who expresses sympathy towards Scott after Fiona breaks up with him, and suggests they arrange to meet in person. However, the entire time Scott has known her, he has mispronounced Mieke as "Mike", thinking that she is male. After Cooper suggests that "Mike" may be a sexual predator, Scott angrily tells Mieke to stay away from him. Scott's younger brother, Bert (Nial Iskhakov), informs him that "Mieke" is a common girl's name among Germans. Realizing his mistake, and that he has feelings for Mieke, Scott tries desperately to contact her again, only to find out that Mieke has blocked his email address. Encouraged by Cooper and with him in tow, Scott decides to travel to Europe, seek out Mieke, and apologize to her face-to-face.

Scott and Cooper first travel as couriers to London, where they end up befriending the members of a Manchester United football hooligan firm, led by Mad Maynard (Vinnie Jones). After a wild night of drinking, Scott and Cooper wake up on a AEC Routemaster double-decker bus on their way to Paris for a Manchester United game. Once in Paris, they meet up with fraternal twins and fellow high school classmates, Jenny and Jamie (Michelle Trachtenberg and Travis Wester), who are also touring Europe together. Jenny and Jamie decide to accompany Scott and Cooper to find Mieke in Berlin and along the way plan to visit other parts of Europe together, since this will be the last summer the four of them will spend as a group before going off to college. The group travel by train to Amsterdam, where Jamie is robbed while engaging in oral sex with a beautiful camera salesgirl. As Jamie had everyone's money, passports, and train tickets with him, they have no choice but to hitchhike to Berlin. Scott asks a German truck driver to take them to Berlin to find Mieke. Scott's German is poor and even though the driver mentions Berlin in his reply numerous times, the foursome fail to realize that he is trying to tell them that he is going nowhere near Berlin. The group ultimately end up in Bratislava, where they are horrified by the desolation of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War. Having realised that there is a great exchange rate for the U.S. dollar, they decide to have some fun and the group goes to a nightclub. Drunk on absinthe, Jenny and Jamie French-kiss and make out with each other, witnessed by Scotty and Cooper, and are horrified when they realize what they are doing. The next day, an American-obsessed Slovak man named Tibor (Rade Šerbedžija) finally drives them to Berlin. Scott and Cooper soon find out that Mieke has gone with a tour group for the summer and will likely be reachable in Rome for only a short time. In order to afford plane tickets to Rome to search for Mieke, Jamie sells his precious Leica M7 camera.

In Rome, the four friends head to the Vatican City, where Mieke is touring before leaving for her summer at sea. To gain access, they pretend to be a tour group, with Jamie acting as their guide; another group has lost their guide and joins, allowing Scott and Cooper to search for Mieke. Inside the Vatican, Scott and Cooper accidentally signal the death of the pope and the election of a new pope. Scott appears on a balcony in papal vestments, where he is taken to be the new pope and spots Mieke among the crowd below. While Scott is meeting up with Mieke, the Swiss Guards realize what is going on and detain Scott and Cooper in order to punish them for their actions. However, the Manchester United football supporters from London suddenly show up at the Vatican, and are just in time to release Scott and Cooper. Scott later finally introduces himself, and confesses his love for Mieke in person, with Mad Maynard giving some last-minute advice. Mieke is happy to see Scott, and after having passionate sex with him in one of the confessional booths, tells him to continue writing to her. Jamie is so convincing as a tour guide that he is hired by Arthur Frommer. On the flight back to Ohio, Jenny entices Cooper to have sex with her in one of the plane's lavatories, thus finally realizing his dream of crazy European sex. The film ends when Scott moves to Oberlin College in the fall. During a phone conversation with Cooper, who is now in a relationship with Jenny, an unexpected knock on Scott's dorm room door turns out to be Mieke, who explains that she is now his roommate because of another misunderstanding about her name. Scott and Mieke share their passionate embrace, as Cooper's voice continues to talk over the phone, demanding to know what is going on.

Cast

Production

Writers Mandel, Berg, and Schaffer all directed while only Schaffer could achieve director credit, according to the DVD filmmaker commentary. Also according to the commentary track, all scenes were filmed in Prague, the Czech Republic, especially in the streets close to the Rudolfinum. The opening scene set in the United States was filmed at the International School of Prague. The scene where the main characters are boarding at the Paris railway station was filmed in Prague's main railway station (Hlavní nádraží). The scene inside Vatican City was actually filmed in Prague's National Museum. The scenes with a German lorry driver were taken at unfinished D5 motorway near Pilsen.

Reception

Critical response

EuroTrip received mixed reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 46% rating based on 119 reviews.[2] On Metacritic, the film scored 45 out of 100 based on 30 reviews.[3]

In her review for Salon, Stephanie Zacharek wrote, "The giddy ridiculousness of Eurotrip is a pleasant surprise: The picture starts out slow and unsteady in its rhythms. But just when you begin to wonder if it’s ever going to get funny, or if it’s going to be merely desperate all the way through, it lifts off like a wobbly helicopter—and somehow it keeps flying."[4] Ultra Culture blogger Charlie Lyne, who also introduced a screening of the film in 2011 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, wrote that "EuroTrip is satire at its most brazenly self-loathing and audaciously entertaining."[5]

Many critics derided the film for its overt sexism. In the New York Times, Elvis Mitchell noted that "almost every girl in the movie with fewer than 10 lines to speak has to take her top off."[6] In his review for Village Voice, Michael Miller critiqued the film for its "constant anxiety that women might turn out to be men and vice versa."[7]

Box office

The film was released in the United States and Canada on February 20, 2004 in 2,512 theaters. Over its opening weekend, the film grossed $6,711,384. It went on to gross $17,771,387 in the United States and Canada and $3,025,460 in other territories for a worldwide total of $20,796,847.[1]

Home media

The film was released on DVD in the U.S. on June 1, 2004, in an R-rated theatrical version (90 minutes) and an "Unrated" extended version (92 minutes). The film was to premiere on HBO on April 2, 2005, but the studio scrapped the premiere due to the death of Pope John Paul II. In the film, there is an image of the Pontiff and a Vatican setting.

Soundtrack

Eurotrip
Soundtrack album by various artists
Released February 24, 2004
Genre Punk rock, pop
Label Milan
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link
  1. "Scotty Doesn't Know" – Lustra
  2. "My Generation" – Chapeaumelon (The Who cover)
  3. "Wild One" – Wakefield
  4. "99 Red Balloons" – Goldfinger (Nena cover)
  5. "In the City" – The Jam
  6. "Shooting Stars" – Cauterize
  7. "Nonchalant" – Chapeaumelon
  8. "Scotty Doesn't Know" (Euro Version) – MC Jeffsky
  9. "Make My Dreams Come True" – Apollo 440
  10. "Du" – David Hasselhoff (Peter Maffay cover)
  11. "Les Promesses" – Autour De Lucie
  12. "Walking in the Clouds" – Basement Jaxx
  13. "I Love Marijuana" – Linval Thompson
  14. "Turn It Up" – Ugly Duckling
  15. "Get Loose" – The Salads
Additional songs

The film features additional tracks not included on the soundtrack album:

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Eurotrip (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
  2. ↑ "Eurotrip". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
  3. ↑ "Eurotrip (2004): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
  4. ↑ Zacharek, Stephanie. "EuroTrip". Salon.com. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  5. ↑ "EuroTrip, a somewhat definitive review". Ultra Culture. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  6. ↑ Mitchell, Elvis (February 20, 2004). "A Jokey Quest for Eurosex, Riding a Wave of Alcohol". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Miller, Michael (February 17, 2004). "Film". Village Voice. Retrieved 7 March 2015.

External links

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