Saturday 13 April 2013

I love you, Beth Cooper (3½ Stars)

The film starts on graduation day at Buffalo Glenn High School in Washington. Denis Cooverman, who is planning to study medicine at Stanford, holds the valedictorian speech. Instead of a typical "looking back and looking forward" speech he calls on the students to find the courage to say things they have wanted to say for years but never had the courage. He calls on others to say "I'm gay", "I have an eating disorder" or "I'm a bully", and everyone knows who he is talking about. His own personal confession is to say "I love you, Beth Cooper". Beth was the leader of the cheerleading squad, and he had always thought of her as out of his league.

But then a miracle happens. Denis and his best friend Richard hold a party that evening, and Beth comes to the party with her cheerleading friends. Maybe Denis does have a chance with Beth after all, but only if he can fight off her jealous boyfriend.

The choice of the film's main actors can't be faulted. Hayden Panettiere is beautiful and self-confident, Paul Rust is awkward and geeky. I haven't seen Hayden in many films, but she seems to be type cast as a cheerleader. It's a role she plays well. I haven't noticed Paul before, but his acting impressed me. As for the film itself, it's no masterpiece, but it's enjoyable enough to be watched once. It's not the best teen comedy ever made, but it's certainly not the worst.

4 comments:

  1. The biggest problem with this film is that they changed the ending from the book, and in the process chopped of the completion of his character arc. That hurt the story badly.

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    1. It's been 10 years, and I haven't watched the DVD since then. I can remember the film's premise, but very little about what happened after that. Maybe I should take the film off the shelf and watch it again. I have no interest in reading the book, so I shan't notice the difference.

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  2. Damn. Blogger did it again. Yesterday i typed a lengthy reply to one post only to have Blogger dump it. It wasn't recognizing me as me, just a random anonymous reader. When trying to fix that, it tossed out the message. This time i copied it before clicking anywhere:

    Like you, it's been a decade since viewing. I don't really remember the film as well as i remember the feeling of being let down at the end. I don't know that i'd recommend going back to it. There's so much out there that still needs watching.

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