What
a Girl Wants? The Teen Audience!
What
a Girl Wants? The Teen Audience!
How can one man go from seeing a Vin Diesel movie one night and an Amanda
Bynes flick the next evening and be able to accurately review BOTH? One
man can. And that man is ... DURGIN!
Yikes, I sound like one of those cheesy movie trailers, don't I?
"In a world..."
I have seen the new Amanda Bynes flick, What a Girl Wants, and here is
what I thought of it. Well, it's not exactly for me and my age group. I mean,
seriously, if I were to go up to a hot teenage girl, give her the once-over
with my 32-year-old eyes, and ask, "So, uh, what does a girl want?"
Chances are, the response I would get back would be something like: "Are
you a friend of my father?" But this Dennie Gordon-directed comedy
will definitely appeal to its coveted target demographic--teen and pre-teen
girls. It doesn't have the crossover charm of The Princess Diaries because
I think it tries to do a little too much and comes on a little too strong. But,
hey, if I were a teenage girl, I would ... er, let's not go there, my friends.
That's some pretty dark territory.
Bynes stars as Daphne Reynolds, the daughter of Libby, a New York singer (Kelly
Preston) who once was married briefly in her wild youth to British Lord
Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth) after they met-cute in the deserts of Morocco
(she fell down a sand dune into his arms, and they fell madly in love ... There
is a naughty "Dashwood" joke here. I know there is! I just can't seem
to find it). But all was not right when the Dashwoodster returned to the manor
with his new bride. It seems Henry was groomed from birth for political office,
and a bohemian such as Libby would have spelled disaster back in the day. So,
Henry's aristocratic family schemed to send the first-trimester Libby away.
Flash-forward 17 years later, and we get Daphne pining for the father she has
never known. Newly graduated from high school with no prospects for college,
she decides to head to England to meet Henry for the first time and see if dreams
really do come true. Then, only then, can she truly blossom into the woman everyone
knows she can be.
Ugh! After writing those last couple of sentences, I gotta pause to take a shot
of Jack and watch a few minutes of the game.
OK, I'm back. What a Girl Wants is obviously a fairy tale for young girls.
Henry lives in a mansion, looks like Prince Charming, and gets invited to all
of the royal balls and garden parties. But he continues to be surrounded by
schemers, including his new fianci (Anna Chancellor), her father and
Henry's chief aide (Jonathan Pryce), and her bratty teenage daughter
(Christina Cole). I think the film would have worked a bit better for
me had it stayed focused on the relationship between Daphne and Henry, which
is quite charming thanks to the two very likable actors, and not gotten bogged
down in the hijinks involving the screenwriters' manufactured villainy. Yeah,
I know fairy tales often have the heroine confronting and defeating witches
and wicked stepsisters and the like. But this one didn't need it.
Firth is really the most valuable player for adults. No one plays the part of
the soulful, stiff, but really romantic Brit better than this guy. He's done
it before in Bridget Jones Diary and The Importance of Being Earnest,
and he comes to play here, too. Henry was quite the wildcat in his youth, into
'70s rock and motorcycles and desert nookie. Daphne awakens some of those old
memories, and there is a really funny scene halfway in that has Firth in front
of a mirror, dressed in leather pants and a muscle shirt, and rocking out to
Little Feet. His air guitar is flawless.
Bynes also has star quality, and she will eventually find a vehicle to give
her BIG crossover success similar to what "ow to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
has done for Kate Hudson. Of course, her being 17 means we're only about
two years away from the Maxim spread, which will be awesome. But after that,
look for Bynes to really blow up and bring her young fans with her into young
adulthood.
She has her first on-screen romance in What a Girl Wants with a British
teen singer named Oliver James, who gets to sing about a half-dozen songs
in the film. Mostly his stuff consists of the kind of slow, acoustic love ballads
that make metal fans like myself want to jam scissors into our ears and twist.
Seriously, this James kid sings tunes that would make Dan Fogelberg wanna
scream, "Come on, boy! Pick up the tempo!" But I'll give him credit.
The kid sings a James Brown song at one of the stiff, upper-crust parties
that Henry and Daphne are forced to attend, and he's surprisingly cool doing
it! Probably the best scene in the film.
In the end, I think the best thing What a Girl Wants has going for it
is its innocence. It's a teen movie that features no cursing, no crude sexual
humor, no flatulence jokes, and no violence (the film's idea of bad people getting
their comeuppance are of the push-'em-into-a-pool variety ... OK, Henry does
punch one character, but he deserved it). The soundtrack is also jam-packed
with wall-to-wall, feel-good pop music. Moms, dads. This is the movie to let
Little Jen and Little Muffy go see on their own. For any guys dating Little
Jen or Muffy, you have my sympathies. I'll be watching The Hunted two
theaters over. Muhahaha!
What a Girl Wants is rated PG for some mild language, but nothing
overly objectionable.
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