| The Sleepover | |
| Director: | Trish Sie |
| Music: | Germaine Franco |
| Cinematography: | Conrad W. Hall |
| Editing: | Jonathan Schwartz |
| Distributor: | Netflix |
| Runtime: | 100 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Sleepover is a 2020 American action comedy film directed by Trish Sie. The film is helmed by a veteran of Step Up and Pitch Perfect sequels and scripted by first-timer Sarah Rothschild.[1] It stars Sadie Stanley, Maxwell Simkins, Ken Marino, Cree Cicchino, Lucas Jaye, Karla Souza, Enuka Okuma, Erik Griffin, Joe Manganiello, and Malin Åkerman. It is the story of a girl and her best friend teaming up with her younger brother and his sleepover companion to save her parents who have been abducted by criminals wanting her mother, secretly a former master thief living with her family under witness protection, to perform one last heist for them. The film was released on August 21, 2020 by Netflix.
In Boston, Clancy Finch is invited by her crush Travis Schultz to a party at his house. Her brother Kevin is caught dancing in the restroom by some older students who record him and bully him, but Clancy's and Kevin's mother Margot, the lunch monitor, scares them away. The bullies upload a remix video of Kevin dancing and Margot admonishing them to YouTube, where it quickly goes viral, gaining over two million views.
Kevin, Clancy, and her friend Mim are picked up from school by their father Ron, an awkward pastry chef. Clancy asks her parents if she can go to Travis's party and they both say no, leading to her insulting her mother and getting grounded. Later, Kevin's friend Lewis comes over for a sleepover in a tent in the backyard.
That night, Clancy and Mim sneak out. On their way to the party, they first scare the boys, causing Lewis to run into the house to pee. While in the bathroom, he notices a man and a woman break into the house, force Ron at gun point and Margot (whom they call "Matilda") to come with them under threat of Ron's death to get their group back together. Margot agrees, removing her necklace as a clueless Ron is brought along. Lewis runs back to the tent and tells the others what happened.
Not believing him, the four run back inside until they notice United States Marshals Agent Henry Gibbs sneaking into the house. An intruder, they attack him, tying him to a chair. He tells them Margot was in the Witness Protection Program because she turned in the boss of the crime syndicate she was in, but has been located due to the viral video.
In another location, Elise and her associate are briefed on the mission. Also present is Margot's criminal ex-fiancé Leo Bouchot, who had been in the Witness Protection Program before he was found.
The kids follow clues Margot left them in the flour and her necklace when she was taken away, leading them to a storage unit, her secret spy center. They take a self-driving spy car to Travis's party. Travis agrees to take them to Downtown Boston in his family's boat, but they are stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard as he has a revoked license.
The four jump off and swim away, then reach the building where they believe their parents are located. They instead find a secret passageway behind a painting of Margot's favorite poet W. B. Yeats leading them to the hideout of Margot's best friend Jay, who tracks Margot's GPS chip to an extravagant gala. Jay tells them to stay, but Clancy handcuffs her to a pipe so all four can leave.
At the gala, Ron, Margot, and Leo plan to steal Queen of Moldana's crown by giving her a non-lethal poison. Upon meeting her, Ron accidentally ingests the poison and vomits everywhere, so gala security detains them. When they are about to be sent to the FBI, Margot and Leo knock out all the security guards. They go with Ron to the main floor, where they find the four kids, who got in by pretending to be a quartet. The seven escape to Leo's safe house.
There, they discover Leo was never in the Witness Protection Program, but is actually the new head of the syndicate. Elise holds them at gunpoint and calls the police, to frame them for the theft. Ron throws a wolf spider at her so she drops her gun and then shoots the chandelier onto her. Margot hot-wires a car that Ron uses to drive Leo into a bunch of construction barrels, then she kicks the crown out of his hands and Clancy catches it.
The Boston Police arrest Leo and those involved. Henry drives everyone back to the Finch house where Travis returns Clancy's jacket and Lewis's mother picks him up. Everyone returns to their normal lives, although Margot does let Clancy participate Berklee School of Music's summer program in Boston for cello.
In August 2019, it was announced Malin Åkerman, Ken Marino, Joe Manganiello, Erik Griffin, Karla Souza, Enuka Okuma, Sadie Stanley, Maxwell Simkins, Cree Cicchino and Lucas Jaye had joined the cast of the film, with Trish Sie directing from a screenplay by Sarah Rothschild. LD Entertainment will produce the film, while Netflix will distribute.[2]
Principal photography began in August 2019.[3] [4]
It was released on August 21, 2020 on Netflix.[5]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of .[6] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on nine critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[7] According to the Hollywood Reporter, viewers who manage to get a few laughs at the film’s much-recycled humor — how many movies have teased the nervous kid who’s allergic to everything and whose parents forbid any sort of excitement? — may perk up toward the end, where glammed-up Mom is in Mission: Impossible mode but still manages to need her kids and hubby to bail her out.