| SHE'S THE MAN |
 2006 - USADirector: Andy Fickman
- Reviewed by Linda
My first response to She's the Man was me laughing at the cover of the DVD. Our heroine, Amanda Bynes, is in a tight tank top, short short skirt, and strappy high heel shoes. She is surrounded by her assorted co-stars, with the girls dressed similarly to her, and the boys both wearing low-slung pants with their fashionable striped boxers showing. All I could think was: "People are SO going to laugh at their fashion in 15 years!" My second response to She's the Man happened while actually watching the movie. Like 10 Things I Hate About You, She's the Man is a modern teen interpretation of classic Shakespeare—in this case 12th Night. Viola (Amanda Bynes) goes undercover as her twin brother Sebastian, enrolling at his boarding school so that she can play on their soccer team (her girls' team got cut from her own school, whatever). Viola/Sebastian falls for her new roommate, the hunky Duke (Channing Tate) who loves Olivia (Laura Ramsey) who loves Sebastian. You know the drill. Anyways, therein lies my second response to the film: Amanda Bynes is so NOT passable in boy drag. You want to tap the filmmakers on the shoulder and say, "You've GOT to be kidding me!" But when you accept that Viola's Sebastian looks like a round-faced 8th grade pre-pubescent boy compared with her schoolmates who look like 25-year old men (because the actors ARE 25-year-old men), it's actually pretty funny. If you've ever seen any "proper" version of 12th Night, you'll have to acknowledge that the vast majority of women in man-drag are not even remotely passable, and therein lies the revelation: the story is, after all, a comedy of errors! Amanda Bynes takes a little getting used to. She is a physical comedian, as in way over-the-top mugging, tripping, eyeball-popping, falling, running, tugging, and squirming. I half expected her to get a pie in the face. But once you get used to her exaggerated tics, you realize that her Sebastian, with his exaggerated "cool" moves and weirdly inconsistent "I'm down with the street, homeys" accent, is actually quite funny. Bynes rules the show, and the rest of the actors basically swirl around her (with occasional scenes stealers like David Cross as the overly friendly principal, and Brandon Jay McLaren as a studly soccer player who secretly has a crush on the school nerd). Whether we adults think these kinds of teen movies are tolerable, the true test of a movie like She's the Man is if its intended audience will dig it. Let's just say that I originally heard of this movie when a co-worker of mine recently told me that her granddaughter's posse of 13-year-old girls went and saw it in the theater, and left squealing in delight. Now those same girls can get their hand on the DVD and endlessly watch gag reels, bloopers, and a music video, look at the photo album, and even play a trivia game. For those frothing teenagers, I'm sure She's the Man is a rousing success. |
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