The
little girl from E.T. has come a long way to emerge as a very likable actress.
Her new film, however, is another in a long line about high school life. Although
this film is better than She's All That, Can't Hardly Wait, and Varsity Blues,
it's still full of dumb characters and ridiculous situations. To top that, they
don't even come close to matching the effectiveness of the similarly themed John
Hughes' films of the 80's.
Drew
Barrymore is a writer for the Chicago Sun Times (if you can believe that) who
goes undercover as a high school student to write a story on teenage life. It
appears her actual school life years earlier were less than pleasant. Barrymore
exhibits all kinds of charm, but is hard to buy in the role of a reporter. Michael
Vartan is a welcome screen prescence as one of Drew's unsuspecting teachers.
Screenwriters
Abby Khon and Marc Silverstein and director Raja Gosnell add nothing new to this
tired genre. Instead of giving us smart characters and fresh ideas, we get the
same old predictable formula. The film tries to teach us that being a nerd is
OK--an idea that worked much better in Revenge of the Nerds because that film
never took anything seriously.
Drew
Barrymore has demonstrated her winning screen presence in films such as Ever After
and The Wedding Singer. Although she's still likable, it doesn't add up to anything
worthwhile because her talent is wasted on a boring, familiar story with too many
subplots.
