She's All That (1999)
Directed by Robert Iscove
High school hotshot Zach Siler is the envy of his peers. But his popularity declines sharply when his cheerleader girlfriend, Taylor, leaves him for sleazy reality-television star Brock Hudson. Desperate to revive his fading reputation, Siler agrees to a seemingly impossible challenge. He has six weeks to gain the trust of nerdy outcast Laney Boggs -- and help her to become the school's next prom queen.
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15 films that influenced She's All That
What critics say influenced She's All That
"She's All That" is basically yet another tale of how clothes make the girl, another brick in the "My Fair Lady"/"Guys and Dolls"/"Pretty in Pink" wall.
A modern take on Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, She’s All That really offers nothing new.
There have been numerous versions of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion story produced on big and small screens, the most popular of which is probably 1964's My Fair Lady.
Of course it is an unbreakable rule of this formula that the ugly duckling is a swan in disguise: Rachael Leigh Cook is in fact quite beautiful, as was Audrey Hepburn , you will recall, in "My Fair Lady."
Arty outcast learns happiness is wearing lip gloss and dating jocks in pointless teen "Pygmalion"…
(Jan. 29, 1999) -- Take the story of Pygmalion and set it in a hip high school, with the hotshot senior class president as Henry Higgins and an "ugly duckling" art student as his project.
A modern take on Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, She’s All That really offers nothing new.
The romance begins, Pygmalion-style, after Zack makes a bet that he can transform any girl into a prom queen.
There have been numerous versions of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion story produced on big and small screens, the most popular of which is probably 1964's My Fair Lady.
Just once I'd like to see the "Pygmalion" formula applied to a woman who was truly unattractive.
…(taken straight out of Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep and other movies).
Be assured, after a decade of razor-sharp Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Heathers movie clones, She's All That is a kinder, gentler tale, a soft and strangely innocent tale for younger, less cynical filmgoers.
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But writer/director John Hughes finally hit the mark with Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), all of which were funny but earned their laughs through teens' genuine fears, curiosities, and anxieties.
Part "Sixteen Candles," part "Pygmalion," "She's All That" tries to hitch a low-rent ride on the coattails of the "Scream" /"Dawson's Creek" teen profit phenomenon by casting a bunch of C-list teenage actors (who, if they had any integrity, would have passed on this movie and kept their fingers crossed for a douche commercial) in roles that Neve Campbell and even James VanDerBeek (late of "Varsity Blues") wouldn't touch with asbestos gloves.
The last ten years has seen a sporadic continuation of the Hughes-type movies, like Heathers (1989), and Clueless (1995).
Be assured, after a decade of razor-sharp Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Heathers movie clones, She's All That is a kinder, gentler tale, a soft and strangely innocent tale for younger, less cynical filmgoers.
Though this notion may have been more eloquently expressed by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in "Grease," it's still not such a bad message.
Then came the musicals, like West Side Story, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Grease, again with actors who were too old to play high school kids.
"She's All That" is basically yet another tale of how clothes make the girl, another brick in the "My Fair Lady"/"Guys and Dolls"/"Pretty in Pink" wall.
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In the 50's, the "juvenile delinquent" genre was invented with movies like Rebel Without a Cause, High School Confidential!, and The Blackboard Jungle,; dramas about troubled kids.
Then came the musicals, like West Side Story, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Grease, again with actors who were too old to play high school kids.