Thinking Out Loud

Tag: Drew Barrymore

  • Never Been Kissed: a wacky misunderstanding, or should somebody call the police?

    Never Been Kissed: a wacky misunderstanding, or should somebody call the police?

    Rating: 2 out of 5.

    Without thinking about it too much, the basic premise of Raja Gosnell’s Never Been Kissed sounds perfectly fine: an adorkable young adult gets a high school do-over. What could go wrong?

    And indeed, roughly the first half of Never Been Kissed is likable, powered almost entirely by Drew Barrymore’s trademark charm and quirk. But the plot begins digging a hole for itself as soon as her teacher’s (Michael Vartan) attention becomes more overtly sexual, her newspaper’s motivations turn crass and exploitative, her nerdy-but-a-knockout friend (Leelee Sobieski) strips down to a leotard for no reason, and her brother’s (David Arquette) own self-actualization turns predatory. And the movie just keeps digging deeper and deeper.

    Never Been Kissed never evinces any awareness that its problematic premise is anything more than a wacky misunderstanding. I’m not sure if there was any way for this story to work without being creepy. Or, uh, unlawful.

    Drew Barrymore and Leelee Sobieski in Never Been Kissed
    How do you do, fellow kids?

    Let’s try some offhand script doctoring: First, cut the 16-year-old gymnast entirely; that subplot is unsalvageable. Second, perhaps Josie could discover that she misjudged her teacher’s attention, and he is in fact focused on helping her blossom. For example, he could invite her to her office, with she and the audience anticipating a hot assignation, but he instead produces a letter of recommendation for her college applications. This way, it’s cute, they still like and respect each other, and can hook up later, when all is revealed.

    Or at the very least, during the editing stage, it could have been made more clear that when Josie confesses, her teacher’s disappointment is specifically over finding out that the newspaper was trying to entrap him. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to anybody in the editing room that the scene played like he was disgusted to find out that Josie was in fact an adult.

    Orrrrrr… maybe just don’t attempt this premise at all. I can’t believe Disney+ is trimming swearwords from some of its PG-13 movies, but Never Been Kissed‘s basic plot doesn’t concern them?

  • Drew Barrymore’s Whip It skates around conflict

    Drew Barrymore’s Whip It skates around conflict

    Writer Shauna Cross and director Drew Barrymore’s Whip It is frustratingly averse to dramatic conflict. Rather than finding resolutions, or allowing issues to evolve in interesting ways, it skates around nearly every incident:

    • Bliss’ (Elliot Page) love interest at first appears to have cheated on her, but in fact didn’t, so the worst you can say about him is that he’s not a phone person.
    • Bliss’ mother (Marcia Gay Harden) fairly easily comes around to supporting her.
    • The obstacle of Bliss being too young to compete is totally defused by a convenient piece of exposition; all she needs is a parental note.
    • Despite the inherent physical violence of roller derbies, we never see Bliss act aggressively herself. Was this a choice, to make the character not seem unsympathetic?
    • Perhaps I missed something, but it was unclear to me if the beauty pageant and the tournament were on the same date. Aside from the societal pressure to be either a beauty queen or a tomboy, why couldn’t she do both?

    Bliss’ charismatic friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) makes her seem rather passive in comparison. She’s more defined by what she doesn’t want to do (be a beauty queen) than what she does (which is… we don’t know), and instead she kind of just mopes around. Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World features more richly drawn character studies of the aimless slacker teenage years.