# Never Been Kissed (1999)

### reviewed by
Mark O'Hara

    Never Been Kissed (1999)

    A Film Review by Mark O'Hara

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Raja Gosnell's 'Never Been Kissed' is a slick and likable film, a formulaic but ultimately satisfying romance targeted toward you, if you are part of the 18-34 demographic that causes Hollywood directors to look over their shoulders at every gag and angle.

Executive producer Drew Barrymore is so hard to dislike: she has a talent for seeming genuine, ingenuous, sweet, amicable. This vehicle has her portraying Josie Geller, a 25 year-old, brilliant young editor at the Sun-Times, a Northwestern graduate who has never gotten around to having a personal life. A whim of her crusty boss gives her the chance at being a reporter - long an ambition of Josie's. Better yet, she'll be an undercover reporter at a high school, enrolling as a 17 year-old! Her brother, Rob Geller (David Arquette) isn't so sure this ruse will work, but Josie nevertheless drives up to the school in Rob's gauche Vega. Will Josie be popular enough to penetrate the cliques-that-be? The answer, which we discover as Josie in her white jeans sashays into Spanish class: NO!

Josie, as it turns out, still suffers from terminal over-compensation. She is so preoccupied with pleasing others, that she stumbles clumsily through the halls and life, even once walking into an opening door. Rob, as it turns out, saves her act by re-enrolling also. He has faked his ID, and wishes to reactivate his chances at a minor league baseball contract. Smoothly Rob reverses the opinions of the superficial student population: he lies continually until Josie has a sterling, awesome reputation. Now she is liked not only by the "Denominators" - a nerdy math group led by a girl named Aldys (Leelee Sobieski) - but by the cool crowd as well.

Alas, her major problem persists: even as she masquerades as a part of the teen crowd that rejected her the first time through high school, Josie Geller is scooped by reporters from other papers. She simply cannot uncover the right story, the juicy scandal that would invite the notoriety for which Mr. Rigfort (Garry Marshall) has sent her.

The film is expert at recreating "Josie Grossie's" zit-covered high school years. Barrymore navigates her innocent way into gross injustice. Even before the prom she is set up, Carrie-like, to take a humiliating dive. In flashbacks disturbing in their reality, we watch the insensitivity of youngsters. Later on, of course, there is too much moralizing about this selfishness; but Barrymore pulls off the preachiness without being too pouty.

David Arquette acts well as Rob, his manner properly crazy and supportive. In posing as a teen, he has a bit more trouble than Barrymore, though: too mature and mannish.

Garry Marshall? This guy is the original Brooklyn smoothie: he does it all (with canny knowledge of how to make his own directing efforts succeed), and acts with abandon in a role replicated from his performance as network chief in 'Murphy Brown.' Good at creating a living caricature, this guy is.

Michael Vartan as English teacher Sam Coulson is accomplished at playing through in the game of overcoming stereotypes: he's the caring and supportive teacher, young and good-looking and himself artistic yet athletic. A he-man with a momma's-boy 'do. What amounts to the film's key plot element as well as its horrendous artifice is the relationship between Sam and Josie. Apparently the audience is not supposed to be bothered when Sam longs for Josie, her precocious knowledge enthralling him. What's worse, Rigfort and another of Josie's bosses, (funny guy John C. Reilly, miscast here) try forcing Josie's hand into an ethically messy situation involving Sam. And we are not supposed to dislike them for this scheme?

Molly Shannon supplies great support as Josie's newsroom friend Anita. Her role also demands several nods to stereotypes, namely promiscuous ones. But Shannon shows that her comic muscles are in shape in scene after scene.

As an aside, what causes screenwriters to fall for silly or obscurely allegorical names? Who out there knows the meaning of the name of Josie's vacuous office assistant???

'Never Been Kissed' ranks above average in the surplus of teen films hitting the market. Its strength is sincere acting, its weakness a cloying predictability. It's obvious the film is aware of its own need to meet the formula that will satisfy an audience. The paradox here is that the ending makes us wait, and then indeed IS satisfying.

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