Eurotrip: Michelle Trachtenberg was great in this fun 2000s comedy

Despite having starred in many of the biggest movies of the last thirty years, including Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, the Jason Bourne films, The Martian and many more, Matt Damon once said that the movie fans most often quote to him is Eurotrip, with fans frequently approaching him, singing “Scotty Doesn’t Know.” A notable flop when it came out in 2004, thanks to DVD and streaming, Eurotrip went on to become a cult classic, and one that’s suddenly become a lot more bittersweet due to the tragic passing of one of its stars, Michelle Trachtenberg, who died recently at only thirty-nine years old. While mostly known for Harriet the Spy, and for her roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, many, us here at JoBlo included, are fond of her charming performance in this underrated flick, which might have been considered just another comedy back in 2004, but in our current, laugh-starved movie climate, feels like a real gem.

The movie is a quasi spin-off of Road Trip, a hit comedy from 2000 that was the first theatrical feature for director Todd Phillips and proved to be a major financial hit for DreamWorks, a studio that’s been all but shuttered in recent years – at least as far as live-action films go. While Phillips went on to direct the comedy classic Old School, for them, the producers of Road Trip opted to make Eurotrip by using the same formula, where a young man, having ruined his chances with the girl of his dreams, races against time with some horny cohorts, to set things right. Instead of having the fellas be horny college kids driving across the country, Road Trip focuses on high school grads making their way across Europe.

The film is written and directed by Seinfeld alums Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, and David Mandel, even though, due to DGA rules, Schaffer is the only one with credit. In it, Scott Mechlowicz plays Scott, a nice guy high school grad who’s been recently dumped. Having been pen pals with a German studio he believes is named Mike, in a drunken, homophobic stupor, he tells off his pen pal when a meeting is suggested, only to discover later that Mike is Mieke, a gorgeous, blue-eyed, blonde-haired German blonde, and quite possibly the girl of his dreams. With his horny best pal, Cooper, in tow (played by Jacob Pitts), the two set off to Europe to make their way to Berlin to find her, meeting up with two of their classmates along the way, the dorky Jamie (Travis Wester), and his hot twin sister, Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg), who Scott and Cooper always viewed as one of the guys, until they see her rock a bikini that is. 

Granted, Scotty may not seem the most sympathetic protagonist nowadays. Still, one must remember that 2004 was a very different era, and the gay panic his character showcases throughout the movie was a staple of the comedy genre way back then. It wasn’t meant to be mean-spirited, and back then, no one really took offence, as it was more of an equal opportunity, let’s offend everyone era, which seems to be somewhat lost nowadays. 

The movie is well-cast, with Mechlowicz solid out our affable lead, while Pitts does a good job as his horny pal, channelling Seann William Scott, who was the kind of this kind of role back then but had aged out of playing teens by this point. Travis Wester is cast in the DJ Qualls-style role as the nerdy guy who – natch – turns out to be a bit of a stud once they get on the road. Best of all is Michelle Trachtenberg, who’s charming as the nice girl next door who turns out to be a major bombshell once they arrive in Europe, much to the confusion of Pitts’s Cooper and, indeed, the audience at this time who mostly knew her from her younger days as a tv star. Trachtenberg should have been the lead in more movies, but shortly after Eurotrip came out, she landed a long-running role on Gossip Girl, which cemented her as a TV star. So, everything certainly worked out well for her.

The movie is episodic but hilarious, with it packed with cameos. There’s Vinny Jones as the raging football hooligan who, natch, turns out to be a pretty nice, if insane, guy. There’s Lucy Lawless as the dominatrix of our dreams – and nightmares, Fred Armisen as a touchy-feeling Italian, Jeffrey Tambour, Kristin Kreuk of Smallville as Scotty’s VERY unfaithful girlfriend, and, most infamously of all Matt Damon, as the emo singer she’s hooking up with, who lipsynchs to Lustra’s Scotty Doesn’t Know.

So, how did Matt Damon end up in Eurotrip? Apparently, he knew the writers/directors from way back in the day, AND he happened to be filming The Brothers Grimm in Prague, where 90% of the movie was shot at the same time and often popped by the set to visit his pals. Given that he was wearing a wig in Grimm, he was able to shave his head to complete the emo look, and his cameo became something of a classic.

Despite it being quite funny, Eurotrip fell short at the box office, only grossing $17 million domestically and only about $3 million internationally (American comedies don’t tend to play well overseas – another reason the genre has died in this era where foreign grosses are king). It’s too bad because there should have been a couple of Eurotrip sequels taking the gang to other continents, but I digress. As I mentioned earlier, the movie eventually became a cult classic on DVD, and the directors all went on to do interesting stuff. All three of them worked on Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Schaffer went on to create The League, Mandel went on to be the showrunner of Veep, while Alec Berg went on to co-create Barry. Again, while Eurotrip might not have made a boatload of money, it’s still a pretty hilarious movie and a great look back at a much less PC time in comedy when T&A, bawdy jokes, and hardcore R-ratings weren’t yet taboo. Yet, it’s also quite bittersweet with the passing of Trachtenberg and a wonderful showcase of her considerable talent as a light comedienne. 

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