For a change of pace from all the thrillers and horror flicks I’ve been seeing, I chose this raunchy sex comedy.  I’m not sure why; movies like this demonstrate to me that the industry has passed me by in not only its tastelessness but its very approach to entertainment.  It used to be that a sex comedy would be made with a male perspective, feature a bevy of buxom beauties whose clothes keep falling off and offer instances of adolescent comedy that might, might be entertaining (but would sure be easy on the eyes).  Now, here, we have a female perspective, sharp and often obscene dialogue, mature themes and no nudity except for the giant penis that makes an appearance.  What is going on in this world?

Sara Zandieh’s film follows Indian-American Maya (Lilli Singh) from America as an adolescent to India for ten years and back again to America as a young computer expert looking to make a name for herself as a programmer.  But no one is listening, and Maya needs a job, so she accepts a substitute teacher role at a public school, where instead of computer science she is assigned to teach sex-ed.  The problems?  Maya is still a reluctant virgin, has trouble relating to her students, has a crush on the computer science teacher (Trevor Salter), has a crazy best friend (Sabrina Jalees) who continually invites her into trouble, hates the authorized class curriculum and wants to make a difference.  This, of course, is a recipe for chaos comedy.

None of this is surprising.  What is surprising is the raunchiness of the material, starting with the beginning scene, which is the ultimate in public humiliation.  No wonder Maya is shipped off to India for a decade.  The relentless gutter language is good for shock value, I guess, but I get tired listening to what are supposed to be adult people talking like adolescents just learning how to swear.  Perhaps the weirdest aspect is that for a leering sex comedy, there is absolutely no sex, almost no nudity and none of the bodaciousness that marked so many of the sex comedies of the 1970s and 1980s (and later, of course, as well).

What this film does do, or at least tries to, is to seriously examine cultural norms about sex-ed and sexual stuff in general, through its comedy.  Maya’s rejection of the approved curriculum is to be applauded, and her goal to actually educate her students (while, of course, learning herself) is laudable.  That these acts land her in a world of trouble is also a reflection of how fouled up things are at the moment.  Doin’ It is actually a fairly serious feminist film masquerading as a sex comedy.  Remove all the raunchiness and what’s left is an awkward, rather heartfelt paean to growing up tame in a wild environment.  There’s a fine moral message at the crux of this female-centric movie; I just wish it were less verbally explicit and more visually, traditionally,  boobular.  ☆ ☆.  14 May 2026.