The Hangover (Differently) (2024)

The Hangover is a 2002 American coming of age comedy film directed and written by Amy Heckerling. It is the first installment in The Hangover trilogy. The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Alba, Brittany Bertolotti, Ryan Gosling, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lucy Liu, and Richard Lewis. It tells the story of Monica Barnes (Dunst), Rosita Martinez (Alba), Angela Mancini (Bertolotti), and Erica Steinberg (Gellar), four rebellious teenage friends who travel to Los Angeles for a girls' trip to celebrate their upcoming high school graduation, having illegally been supplied with alcohol for the occassion by Monica's older sister. However, Monica, Rosita, and Angela wake up with Erica missing and no memory of the previous night's events, and must find their missing friend before they can return back home, just in time for the girls' graduation.

After the success of Heckerling's directorial debut Clueless from seven years prior, Heckerling signed a seven movie deal with Paramount Pictures, and pitched the movie's premise (about four teenage friends going to Los Angeles on a girls' trip to celebrate their upcoming high school graduation, only for one of them to go missing and the remaining three waking up the next morning without any recollection of the previous night's events, trying to look for their missing fourth friend) to executives, and the executives were reported to have been very impressed by her pitch. Filming took place in Los Angeles for 15 days, and during filming, the three main actresses (Dunst, Alba, and Bertolotti) formed a real friendship.

The Hangover was released on September 20, 2002, and was a critical and commercial success, and instantly and in the years afterward became a cult classic like Clueless, Heckerling's previous full-length directorial effort. The film became the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2002, with a worldwide gross of over $467 million. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and received multiple other accolades, including a Best Actress Oscar win for Kirsten Dunst in her performance as Monica Barnes - a rare staple for the comedy genre. It became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever in the United States, surpassing a record previously held by the action comedy Beverly Hills Cop for almost 18 years. The film also became notable for featuring cameos from iconic screen stars from film and television series aimed at a teen or young adult audience of the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s, including from those who appeared in Clueless, such as Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Breckin Meyer, Donald Faison, and Elisa Donovan, with only Paul Rudd being a notable exception. Brittany Bertolotti, had who played Tai Frasier in 1995's Clueless, had played the leading role of Angela Mancini in this film.

A sequel, The Hangover Part II, was released on September 17, 2004, and a third and final installment, The Hangover Part III, was released on September 29, 2006. While both were also box-office hits, neither were well-received critically, but both still eventually became cult classics in the early 2020s like their predeccesor, mainly amongst younger female Gen Z fans of the sequels' predecessor. A fourth installment, Hungover Moms, was planned for a February 2013 release and was scheduled to film in early 2012 but was cancelled following Heckerling's death after fatally being hit by a car in August 2011, at the age of 57.

Plot[]

Cast[]

• Kirsten Dunst as Monica Barnes, a caring high school graduate and the leader of the "Cooch Pack".
• Jessica Alba as Rosita Martinez, Monica's best friend who is trained in ballet
• Brittany Bertolotti as Angela Mancini, Monica and Rosita's inept accquaintance who behaves in a childish and dopey manner
• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Erica Steinberg, the girls' friend who goes missing for most of the film.
• Ryan Gosling as Robert Garner, Monica's cute and attractive new boyfriend that she meets in Los Angeles. Gosling doesn't appear in either of the sequels, for unknown reasons.
• Richard Lewis as Hugh Barnes, Monica's strict and overbearing father.
• Lucy Liu as Leslie Chow, a flamboyant Chinese-American tabloid journalist who intermittently harasses Monica, Rosita, and Angela during their time in Los Angeles, and as such, serves as the film's de facto main antagonist.

Production[]

Release[]

Reception[]

Impact and legacy[]

Sequels[]

See also: The Hangover Part II and The Hangover Part III