Movie Review: She's All That
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What Parents Should Know
Parental concerns include strong language, teen drinking,
and casual sex (though not by the main characters). Zach's
friend brags that he is going to get Laney to have sex with him
in a hotel room he has arranged for the occasion. For some
reason, when Laney's friend overhears this, instead of making
the stunningly obvious move of telling Laney what the guy has
in mind, he races around trying to get the message to someone
else. Parents should know that the movie includes an ugly and
graphic scene in which a school bully torments Laney's
hearing-impaired brother by reaching into his pants to grab
some pubic hair and putting it on his pizza. Zach then forces
the bully and his friend to eat it. Yuck.
Common Sense Media Review
Get ready. The success of movies like "Scream" has led to an
upcoming avalanche of movies transplanting every possible movie
plot into high school. This one takes "Pygmalion" with a few
touches from "Pretty in Pink," "Easter Parade," "Cinderella,"
and "Can't Buy Me Love." It falls smack dab in the middle of a
genre I call "the makeover movie," in which Our Heroine
achieves success through good grooming and accessorizing. The
result here is uneven, with some good performances and even
some witty commentary on teen culture, but beware -- the
raunchy references make this inappropriate for younger teens,
and even parents of mature high schoolers might want to
consider it carefully.
Zach, the most popular and talented boy in high school
(Freddie Prinze, Jr.) gets dumped by his beautiful but mean
girlfriend the day after spring vacation of their senior year.
She has met an MTV-celebrity (Matthew Lillard, hilarious as a
self-obsessed gross-out champion based on MTV's legendary
Puck). Zach and his best friend bet that he can take any girl
in school and get her elected prom queen before the end of
school. The choice is drab Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook),
who is coping with her mother's death by taking care of her
father and brother and by worrying about problems throughout
the world instead of working through her own feelings of loss.
Laney is one of the least persuasive ugly ducklings in
the history of movies. She shucks her glasses and her overalls,
and my goodness! She's beautiful! And my goodness! Zach finds
himself actually caring for her. The plot is almost numbingly
predictable, but one of the movie's strengths it that it makes
clear that Zach and Laney have both limited themselves by
defining themselves before they have really had a chance to
find out who they are.
The movie's other strengths are Prinze, who has a
wonderful screen presence and the magnificent Anna Paquin as
his younger sister. Cook's performance is flat by comparison.
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe is a caricature as Zach's former girlfriend.
Parental concerns include strong language, teen
drinking, and casual sex (though not by the main characters).
Zach's friend brags that he is going to get Laney to have sex
with him in a hotel room he has arranged for the occasion. For
some reason, when Laney's friend overhears this, instead of
making the stunningly obvious move of telling Laney what the
guy has in mind, he races around trying to get the message to
someone else. Parents should know that the movie includes an
ugly and graphic scene in which a school bully torments Laney's
hearing-impaired brother by reaching into his pants to grab
some pubic hair and putting it on his pizza. Zach then forces
the bully and his friend to eat it. Yuck.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
