She’s the Man (7/10)

When you see a high school movie, you don’t expect Shakespeare. In this case, you’d be wrong, because this is “inspired” by Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” a comedy of confused sex roles.

Keeping the names of the characters Shakespeare created, Viola (Amanda Bynes) wants to play soccer but the team at her school has been terminated. So she masquerades as her twin brother, Sebastian (James Kirk), who has stolen away to London for a few weeks to play music. Viola goes to Sebastian’s new school and is assigned Duke (Channing Tatum) as a roommate. Duke is the star soccer player and has the hots for Olivia (Laura Ramsey), who can’t see Duke for dirt, but develops an affection for Sebastian, who is really Viola. Viola falls for Duke, but has to continue to play the role of a boy. So Duke likes Olivia, who likes Sebastian, who is really Viola, who likes Duke.

It all sounds pretty confusing, and it is supposed to be. Bynes does such a good job as a boy, that it comes across as funny and entertaining, even if you have graduated from high school. In fact, she is so good that it is jarring when she reverts back to being a woman later in the film. I attended an industry screening, not a media screening and the audience had a substantial number of teens and preteens in it, the majority of whom seemed to enjoy it. While that might have been predictable, because it is, after all, a movie about high school, I was utterly amazed when I found myself being thoroughly entertained by what at first glance looks like a frivolous teeny-bopper movie. Well, that’s what it is. But it is a frivolous teeny-bopper movie that amused this adult, and I’m not that easy.

March 9, 2006