* AudienceAlienatingPremise: It's a comedy set in the 1970s about two teenage girls who develop a crush on UsefulNotes/RichardNixon and end up becoming major figures in the Watergate scandal. Teens weren't interested in a comedy based around 1970s nostalgia while adults weren't interested in the revisionist history concept (the film also depicts Woodward and Bernstein as a pair of morons), so the film died a quick death at the box office. However, it has become a {{cult classic}} over the years.
* RetroactiveRecognition: Early starring roles for Creator/KirstenDunst and Creator/MichelleWilliams, plus a small part for a still-unheralded Creator/RyanReynolds.
* UncertainAudience: It's a comedy aimed at teen girls, but also revisionist HistoricalFiction. Most teens at the time wouldn't really have had the necessary knowledge about TheSeventies or UsefulNotes/RichardNixon to get all the jokes and references, while the people who would've been interested in a comedy about Watergate would've perceived it as a lightweight teen farce. This was a major reason it became a BoxOfficeBomb.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Somewhat ironically considering that the film ''is'' a period piece (a 1999 film set in the early 1970s), but the HistoricalInJoke that the protagonists were the Watergate informant "Deep Throat" clearly dates the movie as being made before FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt admitted he was the true identity of "Deep Throat" in 2005.
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