The wonderful Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was never spoiled by success

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Entertainment Weekly's Clark Collis interviewed everyone involved in the classic action-romance-martial arts-slacker-musical and crafted a majestic oral history, which you should read here. Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich can also do things, so he rewatched the movie and wrote this piece. (A shorter version appears in EW's July issue.)

"WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB! ONE! TWO!! THREE!!! FOUR!!!!" That’s Kim Pine (Alison Pill) roaring into Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s opening number, and I’m not using nearly enough exclamation points. Words blast across the screen when the ginger-mopped drummer slams her sticks together. Every instrument blares a mosh pit of lightning bolts. As the titular bassist lothario, Michael Cera hippity-hops through the song like somebody’s tapping his jump button. Sex Bob-Omb is a garage band that can’t even afford a garage, but director Edgar Wright stages their performance as a generational battle cry, with all the stylistic exuberance of pre-Frank Miller comics and the cranked-up fuzz of rock before blogs. Call it Nintendo Punk.

Wright adapted Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic into a feat of omnicultural excess, rewarding for anime heads, Richard Linklater die-hards, and anyone who ever hated sell-outs. There’s a feeling of wistfulness, too, more obvious when you watch it now and the all-star cast resemble Baby Mario versions of themselves. This Toronto is a snowglobed ‘90s: video arcades, record store dates, an alt-weekly everyone reads, “skateboarding” as a signifier of snarly way-coolness.

The nostalgia has a purpose. Cera sets his quirky Superbad persona on fire, turning Scott into a man-child bombed backwards from adulthood by a bad breakup. He dates a high schooler (louse!) and he cheats on a high schooler (double louse!). Call him morally ambiguous, but Scott Pilgrim has a sweetly skewed perspective on twentysomething angst. “We all have baggage,” Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) tells Scott. Their past haunts their future, every ex another bad decision coming back to jumpkick them in the face. I can’t think of another movie that so precisely captures the moment when “young adulthood” just means being the oldest kid in the world.

Is it painfully hipster to admit that the film’s box office failure felt right? Anyone who saw it in theaters recognized an instant classic, and success spoils every band eventually. “I’m what’s hip!” screams Jason Schwartzman’s villainous Gideon Graves. “I’m what’s happening! I’m blowing up right now!” The movie rejects his soul-selling corporate godhood — and the market’s rejection produced a cult sensation. Revisiting it in 2020 is a quarantine-breaking social event. The superpowered duels are really just a series of weird nights out, at bars and clubs, on dance floors and main stages. So you don’t just rewatch Scott Pilgrim. You return to the party it’s always throwing.

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