3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, smutty content and frequent bad teen behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.16.09
Buy DVD: I Love You Beth Cooper
• Buy Blu-Ray: I Love You, Beth Cooper [Blu-ray]
I'm grateful for filmmakers who don't need to hit the ball out of the park every time.
After helming the first two Harry Potter entries and bringing Rent
to the big screen, director Chris Columbus must've been exhausted ... and, one suspects, fed up with the sheer size and scope of such projects. No surprise, then, that he'd return to the simpler, gentler style of his younger days — specifically his 1987 directorial debut, Adventures in Babysitting
— and renew his acquaintance with "little" pictures.  |
| If Beth (Hayden Panettiere, center) is in sight, then her thuggish boyfriend can't be far behind ... a realization that prompts delight from Treece (Lauren Storm, left) and Cammy (Lauren London), and absolute terror from Denis (Paul Rust, left) and Rich (Jack T. Carpenter). |
The result, a charming adaptation of I Love You, Beth Cooper — Larry Doyle wrote the screenplay, from his own 2007 novel
— certainly covers no new ground in the teen romantic comedy genre, and in fact feels overly familiar at times. But Columbus and Doyle blend the formulaic ingredients with enough skill to keep us entertained, and the engaging young stars inhabit their roles with enough conviction to sell the material. Doyle's script is funny, earthy and just gross enough, at random moments, to hold the attention of a young target audience. Sadly, though, that demographic probably will avoid this film like the plague. Beth Cooper feels too much like an adult's perception of the teen scene, which automatically makes it uncool; this film also lacks the up-to-the-minute pop score that made Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist
(for example) a more successful teen package. (I liked it anyway. Sue me.)
This film represents a bid for big-screen stardom by Hayden Panettiere, an ongoing presence as the plucky high school cheerleader on TV's Heroes
. She plays a high school cheerleader here as well, which probably won't do much to impress future talent scouts with her range ... but, in fairness, she definitely nails the part. She and co-star Paul Rust are the primary reasons for this film's success: Both deliver winning, thoroughly sympathetic performances. The premise also is can't-miss, since we've all cast ourselves as hapless geeks in long-ago romantic fantasies about being tongue-tied in the presence of The One Who Got Away ... for the simple reason that we never worked up the courage to say anything to the guy or gal in question.
That's a future memory that Buffalo Grove High School valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Rust) is determined to avoid. Encouraged overmuch by best friend Rich (Jack T. Carpenter), Denis uses his graduation speech as a means to confess his worshiped-from-afar, never-before-revealed love for Beth Cooper (Panettiere), the hottest girl in school ... while also putting names to several other white elephants who stampeded through the senior class.
