I thought Britney Spears was Supposed to be in This Movie!!
The producers of Drive Me Crazy decided to do what is popular these days, make a movie with a premise that has already been done and do the high school thing. Usually this would result in a tired movie that really doesn't interest you, but in this case it really wasn't that bad. First off, they used some fresh faces (at least to the movie scene) in Melissa Joan Hart (aka Sabrina, The Teenage Witch or Clarissa) and Adrian Grenier and the story was just cute enough to make you forget you have seen this before. Add in a catchy theme song by Britney Spears and you have a good teen date movie with a few laughs.
Miss Popularity Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) going out with the school bad boy Chase (Adrian Grenier)?
Although they may be next door neighbors, and former best friends, Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart (Can't Hardly Wait, "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," and "Clarissa Explains It All") and Chase Hammond (Adrian Grenier, The Adventures of Sabastian Cole) couldn't be farther apart. Nicole is one of the "popular girls" with tons of school spirit, in fact she is head of the "Centenial Committee" which is in charge of the schools upcoming centenial celebration. Chase is just the bored and rebellious student who doesn't care much about his apperance (especially his hair), his school, his two best friends Dave (Mark Webber) and Ray (Kris Park) or his girlfriend Dulcie (Ali Larter, Varsity Blues, "Dawson's Creek"). Nicole just wants to Brad (Gabriel Carpenter) the schools best athelete and all around dreamboat to take her to the Centenial Dance, and Chase could care less about the stupid dance. But everything changes when Brad falls in love with a ditzy cheerleader and Dulcie dumps Chase for a college guy who is an "anti-animal experimentation" activist (give me a break). So Nicole comes up with the idea that they go to the dance together so, at the very least, they won't suffer the humiliation of going alone and hopefully they will make their real heartbreakers jealous.
Nicole and her "Best" "Friend" Alicia (Susan May Pratt)
Of course the schools social structure is not going to believe that Nicole and Chase just decided to go to the dance together so Nicole first has to clean Chase up, with a new hairdo and a new wardrobe straight out of The Gap comercials, and then they have to strut around looking like just friends at first with the possibility of romance. Chase's friends can't believe that he is spending so much time with Princess Nicole with his new look and Nicole's friends can't believe she would feed from so low in the social food chain, so they have their work cut out for them. Pretty soon Chase is being seen at all kinds of event he wouldn't be caught dead at before like school basketball games, cruising down the avenue, or hanging out with the in crowd at the local drive up malt shop type place (I am guessing that this is a small town, because they actually go cruising) and Nicole actually lets her hair down a little and goes with Chase to a music club that only "his kind" hand out at. Predictably, Chase and Nicole fall in love but don't really want to express it yet because of fear of rejection from their other peers. Just as predictably something goes wrong and they end up being mad at each other over something stupid and we aren't sure if their love is going to make it.
Dave (Mark Webber), Chase (Adrian Grenier) and Ray (Kris Park) are the friends who don't care about the social order
Despite the predictability of the plot, Drive Me Crazy is very enjoyable. The acting is good and even believable in most cases, even if the characters are kind of one dimensional and there are plenty of humorous lines and situations that make you forget that this is an idea that has been done before and (more importantly) makes you forget that this is the fifty millionth high-school love, Dawson's Creek, Felicity type comedy in the recent history of movies. Melissa Joan Hart showed that she can do more than just TV even though she has been stuck in that medium for pretty much her entire career. She may not have given the most moving teenage performance of recent memory, but she does a very good job that you don't really want to question. Adrian Grenier also does an excellent job considering this is his first real "big time" movie as the much more multidimensional character in this movie. And the supporting characters are quite characteristic of teenage life; from Designated Dave (Mark Webber), the nerdy guy who is just trying to make the jocks notice him, Dee Vine (Keri Lynn Pratt) the former nerd who became the school's princess, Alicia (Susan May Pratt, 10 Things I Hate About You), Nicole's "Best Friend" who kind of stabs her in the back for the sake of popularity (I am sure we have all known a girl like that in high school), and Brad (Gabriel Carpenter), the school's best athelete and the guy every girl wants to date. Like I said, Drive Me Crazy may be almost exactly like other teenage movies, some of them with the same basic plot... but somehow it still seems fresh and worth a look.
