Film So so so so so so so so so so so so BAD!
I'm a girl. I can handle Rom Coms. In fact when the mood takes my I can occasionally crave one. I don't mind being the PJ's and ice cream steriotype from time to time. But this film is just SO disasterously bad it just makes me feel like I'm bleeding from every hole in my body. There are just so many things wrong with it, I have no idea where to start.
The main character is just pathetic. I get it's an uglyducking story and eventually she'll prove to be beautiful all along (dude, it's Drew Barrymore) but she's just so spineless and invites so much of the backlash against her. How am I meant to empathise with a character when all I want to do is poke her in the eye with a pencil?
And the relationship. Blegh. The whole romantic set-up is that the teacher has a Lolita thing going on, but by the end it's okay because she's legal and he can tap that? How sweet.
And why does she have to stand out on that mount and wait for him to come? Can that be any more emotionally manipulative? If he doesn't go and meet her infront of all those people and proclain his undying love for her, everyone in that town will call him a jerk for all time even though she lied to him and was about to expose him as a pervert for her career.
And how could anyone on the face of the planet who wasn't blind or had some sort of mental disability mistake Drew Barrymore for a sixteen year old? Oh, right, because no one else [[dawsonscasting looks sixteen either]]. Well except for Jessica Alba.
I'm not entirely suprised that the guy who directed this went on to do such classics as Big Momma's House, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Avoid! Avoid like the plague.
Film Teens Are Monsters & Ephebophilia is Good: The Movie
I do not like this film. At all. Even though I find high school films to be fun, fair game, even if there is an amount of bullying in it (I like its contemporaries Jawbreaker, 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Can't Hardly Wait, The Rage: Carrie 2 and Sugar & Spice), this film is unlikable material filled with unlikable people.
Josie is a copy editor and a desperate wannabe wimp, still traumatized by a rough high school experience and continues to be walked on by schoolmates, teachers and especially her boss, played by an uncharacteristically dickish John C. Reilly (yes, he's played characters like this before, but at least they were funny/interesting; here he reminds me of early Don Cragen whose only personality was to be angry and yelling). She is supposed to get a good story from the "popular" kids, in spite of them relentlessly treating her like shit, and out of almost nowhere becomes popular due to an odd word-of-mouth from her "cool" brother, who also becomes a student, possibly to relive his Glory Days instead of accepting his current lackluster status, she decides to hang out with them and be In with the In Crowd in lieu of a genuinely likable (and the closest thing to a two-dimensional character) friend, played by Leelee Sobieski? Oh, that aesop about accepting yourself and standing on your own without striving for validation. It is irrevocably shattered.
The other characters are just there to be stereotypes, a Living Prop or something that would never fit into a "teen" film of today unless it were a parody or a Black Comedy. The aforementioned mean girls are there. The Jerk Jocks are there. The Hollywood Nerds are there. Her coworkers, while encouraging of her and her efforts, don't stand out and are only there to support the plot. Josie's already mentioned brother's only role is to make her fit in and to lust after and date a teenage girl. Seriously. And both of Josie's "love" interests are disgusting: one is a narcissist and sociopath in training who in spite of being a prick, she is still wildly attracted to due to visualizing him as the same boy who cruelly embarrassed her on her long-ago prom night and the once-promising as a character teacher turns into a total creep by falling for her when he initially thought she was 17. Even better, once her true age and motives are discovered, he gets mad at her for making him fall for her! Who cares if it was the 90s? You knew it was wrong. Dumbass. Then she releases her report, everyone (including the ephebophilic teacher) likes her report, forgives her and she smiles.
Twenty-plus years later, this film really shows its age, and not for the better. Unless you're a huge fan of Drew Barrymore, don't bother.