She’s All That **** (1999, Freddie Prinze Jr, Rachel Leigh Cook, Paul Walker, Matthew Lillard, Anna Paquin, Kevin Pollak, Kieran Culkin) – Classic Movie Review 642

This is THE Freddie Prinze Jr movie. Director Robert Iscove’s 1999 movie is an essential, very likeable Nineties teen romantic comedy.

Prinze Jr stars as hot-to-trot high-schooler Zach Siler, who, having just been dumped, makes a bet with his classmates that he can turn the very next girl who comes along into the prom queen. And she turns out to be gawky, bespectacled Laney Boggs (Rachel Leigh Cook), a girl whose life is a permanent bad-hair day.

Naturally, it turns out to be all too simple to transform Cook into the lovely girl she really is. But the plot does thicken a little when Prinze Jr falls for her for real.

Variable, thin and patchy though R Lee Fleming Jr’s screenplay may be, She’s All That is still mostly pretty cute, sweet and funny, and largely deserving of its huge success. Prinze Jr is a charmer.

In an excellent support cast, a young Paul Walker (just 26) plays Dean Sampson and Matthew Lillard is Brock Hudson and there’s also Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Anna Paquin, Kevin Pollak and Kieran Culkin, all giving attractive performances. Also in the cast are Gabrielle Union, Elden Henson, Clea DuVall, Lil’ Kim, Usher Raymond and Tamara Mello.

Star and director Robert Iscove reunited for Boys and Girls in 2000. Prinze Jr and Lillard reunited for Summer Catch (2001) and the Scooby-Do and Scooby-Do 2 movies.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 642

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