Directed by John Schultz
Written by Rob Thomas
Based on the novel "How I Created my Perfect Prom Date" by Todd Strasser
Starring Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier
As Reviewed by James Brundage
The business in which I work is a nasty one. It is one of politics and of policies. Of embargoes and emissaries. Mostly, however, it is genres and grading. When grading a film, a thought brought into the forefront of your mind is "should I do this on a curve?" With a genre such as "the teen flick", something so hack that is seems to conspire towards making critics unhappy, grading on a curve would make an F an A. Since there is such a dearth of great teen flicks, and since the ones that up the curve are few and far between, I do not grade teen flicks on a curve. If I were, however, Drive Me Crazy would still get an "F"
A note to the people in Hollywood: if you are seeking to devise a movie based on a soundtrack, please be a little less obvious about it. Use said song to hype the movie but please don't share the title. That's just stupid. The movies in which popular artist's songs share the name (or share the refrain, in this case) of the movie are ones that rank right down their with using "based on a true story" as a tag line (see Patch Adams). They just don't fly for me.
Also on the marketing, please put it in the sub-genre that it deserves. In this case, Drive Me Crazy was advertised as a teen comedy and ended up being an oxy-moron: a teen drama. The drama level in this is akin to watching a marathon of the worst episodes of "Days of Our Lives." It isn't worth the price of the ticket.
The story of Drive Me Crazy is that of ultra-hip girl Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart), who's would-be boyfriend goes for someone else instead. Distraught over this, she goes to next door neighbor Chase Hammond (Adrian Grenier), who was actually dumped by his girlfriend. The implied proposition: go to the centennial dance with me and I'll sleep with you.
I don't care if angry parents email me about encouraging amoral behavior in teens until New York goes to sleep, but this is the implication in the movie. Of course, being Hollywood this is never out-and-out stated, but it is heavily implied. The fact that it refuses to paint teens as innocents (like most PG-13 teen movies do) is Drive Me Crazy's only endearing quality.
Basically, the story goes along in an East-meets-West mentality as beatnik Chase and socialite Nicole mix, mingle, fall in love, and rehash their days in junior high. The all predictably live happily ever after. The end.
WHO CARES?