# Never Been Kissed (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com

The tagline says that `Some things are worth waiting for.' This sure ain't one of them. Drew Barrymore (Ever After) stars as Josie Gellar, the youngest copy editor in the storied history of the Chicago Sun-Times. (Do you think that makes Roger Ebert hate the film more or less?) She's meticulously uptight and loves the sentimentality of your typical Hallmark card. In other words, a mousy brown-haired virgin.

Although she longs to one day be an undercover reporter, her superior Gus (John C. Reilly, Boogie Nights) pays no attention to Josie. That is, until the day the Times' nut-job editor-in-chief (Garry Marshall), who is tired of getting scooped, assigns a surprised but exuberant Josie to work undercover at South Glen South, a local high school. Now, mind you, there isn't any particular story he wants unmasked. She's just supposed to stumble onto something earth-shattering that will boost paper sales.

Now, if I had a nickel for every time I heard some schlub say, `If I could go back to high school now, knowing what I know, my whole life would be different tee-hee-hee.' Sure it would. The closest these people come to doing something about their personal schooling horrors is to relive it vicariously through Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street. It's sort of like saying `Jeez, if I knew that eating a box of Twinkies every day would make my ass-shadow eclipse Cleveland, I never would have started tee-hee-hee.'

Josie is just like these out-of-touch wonders. Even though she was a zitty geek (nickname: `Josie Grossie'), she looks forward to getting another stab at being popular. The newspaper rigs her with a hidden camera, with all images being transmitted back to Gus, who apparently has nothing better to do all day than watch his reporter's exploits, hereafter dubbed `The All-Humiliation Network' due to Josie's uncanny knack of not being able to fit in. In fact, she's forced to befriend the lowest of the low (according to the 1999 edition of The High School Food Chain) the math club and their leader (a brilliant Leelee Sobieski, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries).

Things take an odd but expected twist when Josie's brother Rob (David Arquette, Ravenous) also enrolls at South Glen South. Why? Because he apparently blew his shot at a big baseball scholarship when he came down with mono before the most important game in his high school career. His instant popularity jettisons the homely Josie into the ranks of the school's social elite and even nets her the welcome advances of the skinny-cool-sensitive guy who plays guitar. When I was in high school, guys like this got beat up. Now, I guess they're popular.

Throw in the predictable romance with her English teacher (Michael Vartan, The Curve, who weaves in references to the whole `All the world's a stage' thing from Shakespeare's As You Like It), as well as the big prom finale (which is actually a competition with rival high school East Glen East, natch) and you know you're just minutes away from a gem of a line like `I've waited my whole life to fit inand now, I finally do!' Sit down and shut up. You're not really fitting in. It's a sham of a mockery of a travesty of a sham. And I think she wore the same dress to the prom that she wore in Ever After. Talk about your fashion faux pas! It's a good thing Joan Rivers wasn't covering that event.

Barrymore is actually becoming quite the deft physical comedienne, unafraid to make herself look unsightly for effect. But her performance isn't enough to overcome even one of the other problems with Never Been Kissed, which was directed by John Hughes understudy Raja Gosnell (Home Alone 3) who apparently didn't study enough. But if you go, make sure you stay for the closing credits because they show school pictures of the whole cast and crew. (1:47 PG-13 for mild language, sex talk and implied drug use)

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