Drive Me Crazy feels like the two-hundredth high school movie this year. The actual number is not quite that high (let's see - She's All That, Varsity Blues, Never Been Kissed, 10 Things I Hate About You, American Pie) but I haven't been subjected to so much talk about proms and homecoming games since I was in high school myself. I have said in this column before that I've always had a fascination with the genre. Having grown up in the heyday of John Hughes, high school movies mean a lot to me. Nothing in recent years has measured up to his masterpieces like The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink. In fact, most of them these days are downright dumb. Or am I just, as they say, all growed up?
Maybe a little of both. Drive Me Crazy more or less proves this. The target audience will probably love it. Adults, like me, will see right through the cliches. And yet, it's not bad. There were things I kind of liked about it, even as I lamented the utter familiarity of it.
Melissa Joan Hart (TV's "Sabrina the Teenage Witch") plays Nicole, a pretty, popular high school senior who is banking that her dream guy will take her to the prom. The guy sends word through friends that he plans to ask Nicole, but during a basketball game, he meets someone else and asks her instead. Realizing that showing up at prom stag would be a serious faux pas, Nicole looks for help from her next door neighbor, Chase (Adrian Grenier). Chase is in the "beatnik" clique at school; he wears black, has an attitude, and gets into a lot of trouble. He agrees to hang out with Nicole to make the girlfriend who just dumped him jealous. What he doesn't expect is that his new "girlfriend" will not only introduce him to the in-crowd, she will also provide a total makeover. Gone is the beatnik look, in is the preppie look.
You can no doubt figure out the rest of the plot. Chase becomes enraptured with the cool kids, his friends think he's a sellout, and he and Nicole start falling for one another even though it's all supposed to be just an act. This basic plot was used twelve years ago in a very good film called Can't Buy Me Love, and again earlier this year in a not-very good one called She's All That. I'm quite sure other teen films have used the scenario as well.
But what makes Drive Me Crazy modestly pleasurable is that the characters in this movie seem like real kids. They say and do things that are genuine. Too many teen films turn their characters into one-dimensional cutouts. This one at least makes an attempt to get inside the minds of teenagers, to figure out what attracts them to one another, and to capture the essence of a time in life when things are more carefree and you know it. The situations may be cliched, although the script captures the attitudes and interactions of adolescents nicely.
I also liked the chemistry between Hart and Grenier (who starred earlier this year in the indie film The Adventures of Sebastian Cole). They're good together. So good, in fact, that I wish they had been in a more original movie. I can't quite recommend Drive Me Crazy because, in spite of the good things, I've really seen this one before. Even the stars seem to realize the plot is old hat, and they obviously want to burst out into something fresher. If nothing else, there are some laughs here, two good performances, and an unexpected final scene that has surprisingly icky implications. But hey, a few more oddball scenes just like it and maybe the film would have risen above the pack.
(
1/2 out of four)
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