Prom Pact

Read our review of the Disney+ original movie Prom Pact staring Milo Manheim and Peyton Elizabeth Lee.

Every interaction she has in the movie is a joy to watch, and we just want to spend time with her. There’s a whole subplot of a teen couple fighting that happens only in the background, and the “promvites" are perfectly dosed out so that they don’t interfere on the main story, serve as 80s references, and provide some funny moments, all at the same time. At the same time, Anthony Lombardo’s script never fails to establish Mandy as a girl who has her heart in the right place, which helps us root for her during most of the story. When Mandy gets wait-listed for Harvard, she realizes she can approach a senator’s kid in order to get the politician to write her a letter of recommendation and make her college dreams come true. However, cinema kind of stuck with the outcast figure for the following 20+ years, and it’s great to see more movies in which there’s less of a divide between them and the popular kids. It highlighted how they were pushed into a corner in order for jocks and cheerleaders to have the time of their lives.

However, Mandy wants a bigger name. She wants a letter from Senator Lansing, a Harvard alum whose son, Graham, just so happens to attend Mandy's school. Of ...

Her mom expresses disappointment that Mandy isn’t dating a popular guy, and later, Mandy questions her mother’s judgement in letting a 3rd grade Mandy watch the R-rated film Risky Business. Most of Mandy and Ben’s classmates call Ben “No Nuts Plunkett” due to a nut allergy. Her mom fondly remembers a senior prank wherein she and her friends filled their principal’s car with Cheetos—and she wishes Mandy would perform the same prank. Mandy and Ben attend a party where most of the underage attendees are drinking. And when you consider that kid is only a freshman in high school (so about 14 years old), it’s just gross. (One girl expresses disappointment with her classmates since she needs their help on a service project the following morning and worries they’ll be too hung over to bother showing.) Before these events, Ben had never been to a party with booze that had been drunk by anyone but an adult. And Mandy goes the extra mile to make things right since she recognizes that she was in the wrong and owes it to Ben. [Spoiler Warning] After Mandy finally gets a recommendation letter from Graham’s dad, she decides not to use it. Mandy and Ben have never been the type to drink, party or otherwise act crazy—which is awesome. Downs (winner of two Nobel Prizes for her work to stop global poverty), she’ll need a killer recommendation letter to tip the scale. Now, Mandy could get one of her many teachers/supporters to write the letter. And if she wants to be a student under Harvard’s prestigious Dr.