Never Been Kissed

The nice thing about Drew Barrymore - or, to paraphrase the late Douglas Adams, ONE of the nice things for there are several - is that she's willing to try almost anything from "Guncrazy" to "Ever After" (although I suspect she would draw the line at "Bad Girls 2"). In this appealing though predictable teen flick, she's an eager writer for a newspaper given a chance to prove she can do more by going undercover to see what today's teens are up to in high school, and finds that nothing's really changed.

Drew is as engaging as ever whether appearing in class way too overdressed or dancing on stage while on drugs (relax, the film's overall pretty inoffensive), and it may have been prophetic that her joke about having been named Josie after the leader of a cartoon rock band goes over the head of her best friend at school (the film version of "Josie and the Pussycats" was a box office flop in America). The movie isn't exactly surprising, and won't appeal to anyone who insists on teen films having acid in their veins - but then again, the edgier "Jawbreaker" wasn't just bad-spirited, it was BAD, period. Call me soppy, but I like a happy ending, and this does have one (even The Prettiest Girls In School don't turn out to be that horrid in the end).

If only the Seekers' "Free To Be You And Me" (which Drew and her friends sing along to in a car in one scene) and some of David Newman's sweet score had been on the soundtrack album, but that's not a problem exclusive to this film; what with this and "Charlie's Angels" (not to mention "Olive, the Other Reindeer") Barrymore's record as a producer is a lot better than, say, Michelle Pfeiffer's. And as I said in the summary, you get Drew Barrymore and Jessica Alba in the same movie (this is a Twentieth Century Fox movie in more ways than one).

Never Been Kissed gives Drew Barrymore the chance to do something that maybe 70% of us would like to do. Go back to high school and make some necessary corrections. Actually the first time for me was bad enough and at my age I doubt I could pull it off the way Drew does.

Of course the reason could also be that once we leave high school it's like leaving a cocoon and we have to deal with the great big unfriendly world out there. I've known a few in my life who would go back and stay if they could. In fact there is a Law and Order episode which explores the dark side of this same situation. A girl looking young enough to pull it off, goes through high school at least three times and kills the person who stumbles on her secret.

With Drew though it's an assignment. She's a copy editor for the Chicago Sun Times who yearns to be a reporter. Publisher Garry Marshall who plays the part like Donald Trump took over the Sun Times gets this brilliant idea and just sees in Barrymore a young enough looking person to pull off the masquerade.

High School the first time was bad enough. Drew was not the most popular then and she's not doing better the second time around. That is until brother David Arquette also goes back to school and helps her over the rough patches.

Of course this raises a whole lot of issues for Drew, peer pressure from two sources, job and school. What's a girl to do?

Never Been Kissed is a light and charming comedy which to its credit skips over the opportunity to be crassly exploitive and gives us some good entertainment. Drew is very funny and sweet and her performance in moments of stress for her character moves nicely into pathos. Michael Vartan as her English teacher is the kind I wish there were more of in the education field and Leelee Sobieski and Jessica Alba play a pair of the empty headed cool kids that Drew tries so desperately to hook up with.

Still it doesn't inspire me to return to Midwood High School.

I was a freshman in high school when this movie came out and I LOVED it. Maybe it was because I had a huge crush on my English teacher and this was my way of fantasizing a hot teacher falling for one of his students. My 15 year old self didn't understand how unethical that would have been (not to mention illegal), I just thought it was soooo romantic. Fast forward 20 years to rewatching it with my husband and it was a completely different experience. The premise is still cute and the sad parts are still sad, but I couldn't get past how creepy that teacher was. All she did was read poetry and give smart answers in his class and he was smitten. While my young self got excited every time he gave her gooey eyes, my adult self was shocked that a teacher would act act so inappropriately. If he had been in on the secret, it would have been okay I guess. But all of that with his girlfriend and him getting jealous when she was with other teenagers (also unethical because she was interested in an underaged boy at one point) was just too much for me. I could barely watch it. It could have been a cute movie if it had been written a little bit differently, but wow.

Josie Gellar (Drew Barrymore) is a Chicago Sun Times copy editor. She's a stiff perfectionist, and not aggressive enough to be a reporter. That is until the owner arbitrarily assigns Josie as an undercover high school student. Only she was a loser nerd in her high school years, and she returns as a loser nerd in her new undercover work. With the help of her younger drop-out brother Rob Geller (David Arquette), she gets a makeover and infiltrates the popular group.

She is scary nerdy and humiliating. It's really not funny unless we are supposed to laugh at her. Luckily for the movie, Drew Barrymore is impossibly lovable. She makes us love her no matter what, and makes this sad pathetic character somewhat watchable.

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, because the previews made it look hysterical. I was surprised that this is one of the first movies that I have ever seen that doesn't give away the ENTIRE plot in the trailer.

I was glad that I got to see the movie, but I came away feeling that the movie was really inconsistent. It is not up to the standards of some of the other teenage-girl angst flicks (She's all That and 10 things I hate about you come to mind). The heroines in those movies could wipe the floor with any of the characters in Never Been Kissed.