A Miramax Films Release
Written by R. Lee Fleming, Jr.
Directed by Robert Iscove.
Starring: Freddie Prinze, Jr., Rachel Leigh Cook, Matthew Lillard, Paul Walker, Jodi Lynn O'Keefe, Usher Raymond, Dule Hill, and Anna Paquin.
Tia and Tamera did it. Marcia and Jan did it. Cher used to do it all the time, and I'm fairly certain that Anette even did it once -- in black-and-white, no less! "It" of course is the process of using one of the most hackneyed storylines of the 20th Century: transforming a plain girl into a hottie for the local stud, be he Henry Higgins or Greg Brady. You'd think that was the whole story of Miramax's new release She's All That, but you would be wrong -- this film is as complex as real high school life, and from start to finish it is an absolute delight!
You will probably go to see She's All That because you are a fan of Rachel Leigh Cook ("Dawson's Creek"), or Freddie Prinze, Jr., or Paul Walker IV, or teenaged Oscar® winner Anna Paquin, or Scream's Matthew Lillard, or Elden Henson of The Mighty Ducks, or of Usher Raymond, Lil' Kim Jones, Kieran Culkin, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, or . . . well, let's just say it has an all-star cast. I'll even go one step further and say something extremely rare: She's All That is perfectly cast.
If you are reluctant to see it because you are afraid (as I was) that it is going to be just another "let's make the dumpy chick look gorgeous for the Prom" story, fear not: the whole make-over scene is just a couple of minutes long, it's funny, and it is only of minor importance to the overall story of high school love, teenaged angst, and self-important bitchiness and studliness.
There is no need to waste any screen time on the make-over session, because it is obvious that Laney (Rachel Leigh Cook) only needs to take off her glasses and get her hair done to look gorgeous. Nor is there any of the usual sturm und drang about "what will we ever find for this schlub to wear so she can become the Prom Queen?" Laney just slips on a nice dress and winds up looking like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. So what's the other hour-and-a-half about? Amazingly, it's about the characters.
Writer R. Lee Fleming, Jr. knows the people whom we know (and whom we alternately idolize or despise), and director Robert Iscove gets his entire cast to slip into their appropriate places in the high school pecking order, and, just as in real life, that's where they stay -- until Big Men on Campus Zach Siler and Dean Sampson (Prinze and Walker) make their nasty little bet that Zach can turn the dumpy Laney into the Prom Queen. Once Zach starts pursuing Laney (who definitely does not want to be bothered by Zach, whom she sees as nothing but a self-centered jock), their whole world gets turned upside down and -- suddenly -- it's the unfashionable people who become popular and confident.
It all starts because school stud Zach gets dumped by his destined-to-be-Prom-Queen girlfriend, Taylor Vaughn (a splendidly bitchy Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), who has become the new girlfriend of a Real Live TV Star, Brock Hudson (the always amusingly wicked Matthew Lillard). Iscove does a remarkable job of weaving Taylor's flashback of meeting Brock into the main story, but, unfortunately for Taylor, although she vividly remembers meeting Brock, she seems to have forgotten why he is "a star." Brock, you see , starred in the fictious MTV's "Real World: Los Angeles 2," in which he showed the world that he was a totally self-absorbed, obnoxious jerk. Director Iscove makes sure that we do see what a jerk Brock is; the woefully shallow Taylor, however, can't get over the fact that she is now dating a Real TV Star, instead of just captain of the soccer team and class president Zach. Eventually she makes the horrifying realization that not even Brock's considerable bedroom talents can make up for the simple, obvious fact that Brock is a complete ass, but by then, Zach and Dean have made their bet and Laney has begun to displace Taylor as the most popular girl in school.
It is that gradual process of displacement, in which "the first become last and the last become first" which is the heart and soul of She's All That. As television programs as diverse as "Married With Children" and "Hyperion Bay" show, this does happen. She's All That is the magic window which lets us see this process as it might actually occur.
Sure it gets a little silly at times, but so does real life. In She's All That, as in real life, sometimes the winners become losers, sometime the losers become winners, and sometimes the winners keep on winning, no matter what happens to them.
This movie is such a winner that I have made a bet of my own with a friend: if She's All That doesn't make at least $100,000,000 in its first six weeks of release, I will pick up our next lunch tab. Trust me folks -- the rumors about me being such a cheapskate that I only pay for my own meals on 29˘ day at McDonald's are quite true, and I wouldn't risk betting on having to pay twenty-nine whole cents on someone else's hamburger unless I knew I had a sure thing. She's All That is a sure-fire winner; it will be one of the big box office hits of 1999. I give it my highest rating: W8: Worth $8. Who knows? I may even go out and buy a ticket of my own just to see it again.
