Ms. Barrymore has certaintly transformed her career and her public image. Less then five years ago she was Hollywood's "bad girl," dancing on David Letterman's desk and flashing him. A little over a decade ago she was a drunk little nine year old living it up a little to much. But then starting about a year and half ago she started to change her image and transformed herself into an adult version of the cute little girl from E.T. This transformation came full circle with The Wedding Singer, and now she proves it wasn't a fluke with this year's Date Movie to beat Never Been Kissed, and it is going to be a big challenge for any other date movie to top this one this year.
Drew Barrymore as Josie Gellar
Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore, The Wedding Singer, Ever After) is the best copy editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, but she is desperate to be a reporter. She is finally given her big break, she is given an undercover assignment to become a high school student to write about how teenagers live. The only problem is she was a real tool in high school the first time around (her nickname was Josie Grossey), and the second doesn't start a whole lot better. The only friends she meets is Aldys (LeeLee Sobieski, Deep Impact), who is basicially the school outcast because she is incredibly smart (and about eight feet tall, OK maybe not eight but she is a really tall girl) and the math club (aka "The Denominators"). The problem is her boss threatens to fire her unless she becomes popular and gets a good story. So she asks for help on becoming popular from her brother Rob (David Arquette, Scream, Scream 2), who was the king of cool in high school, but who now works in a copy/mail center. To help her out, and to get a chance to impress baseball scouts again, Rob registers himself in her high school and starts spreading rumors about all the cool stuff that she does (like she spends all her free time on a boat with her parents in the south of France, or that she dumped the drummer of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy). Suddenly she is the most popular girl ever and the coolest (or as he says most Rufus) guy in school, Guy (Jeremy Jordon), starts crunching on her (and according to everybody she wants to be crunched by Guy).
Josie and her brother Rob (David Arquette)
While she is looking for her story she gets to know her English teacher, San Coulson (Michael Vartan, The Pallbearer) and starts to fall for him. That, and of course she had to ditch Aldys because she isn't cool. Not to mention the fact that her boss is presuring her to get a story, and when he finds out that her teacher is being (what he thinks is) too nice to her he tells her that that is her story. Meanwhile it is prom time and Guy is her date. So know she has to figure out a story that isn't about her teacher to save her career and not destroy his (not to mention not lose him) save her friendship with Aldys and disclose her feelings to Sam without blowing her cover.
Josie gets taught lesson from Sam (Michael Vartan)
Once again I have written a review that totally doens't do the movie justice. Well actually, it does the plot justive just fine... but the plot isn't what makes this movie so great. First off the characters are extremely well developed, even the minor ones. Rob (David Arquette) is more than just a minor character who is there to help Josie along... he has hopes of his own to be a baseball player and, later in the movie, a coach. Anita (Molly Shannon, "Saturday Night Live"), a friend of Josie's at work who is (how shall I put this nicely... I can't) a slut (her best quote was "I never made it to the prom... the closest I ever made was the parking lot"). Even the ditsy popular girls have a little bit of depth (very little, but some). But the best parts are just the silly comedy that they have thrown into the plot. It is a lot like Drew Barrymore's last romantic comedy The Wedding Singer, and that had Adam Sandler, the king of silly comedy. Just trust me, this is one of the best romantic comedies of the decade, not just the year... so go ahead a go see it.
