Always a Bridesmaid

27 Dresses

Director: Anne Fletcher

Cast: Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Malin Akerman, Edward Burns, Judy Greer 

Released: January 18, 2008

Viewed in theaters: January 24, 2008

This movie sort of reminded me of a weird agglomeration of My Best Friend's Wedding and Runaway Bride. The former because our main character, Jane (Katherine Heigl), has to watch her sister get prepared to marry the man that she (that would be Jane) has been in love with for years and she even tries to sabotage the engagement at one point and the latter because there's a newspaper story angle to this story.

Jane absolutely loves everything about weddings. She loves being there for her friends and helping them prepare for their big day. Uh, why isn't she a wedding planner? This is literally what she was put on this earth to do, but instead she works at some company called Urban Everest that sells outdoor stuff? I'm not sure. She's the assistant for the company's boss, George (Edward Burns), who she's in love with, but he only sees her as a devoted employee and a good friend.  

The beginning of the movie starts with Jane being a bridesmaid at TWO wedding in the same night, so she's taking a taxi back and forth from Manhattan to Brooklyn all night. Good Lord, when Robin Williams had to pretend to be Mrs. Doubtfire to celebrate a birthday (?...I don't remember) with his family and also be his character for a job interview with that one guy, at least he chose the same restaurant! Well, I don't think he chose it, but he just got lucky that both events were at the same restaurant. Anyway, this girl is crisscrossing across the city several times while changing her dress, shoes, and accessories each time. She hires a taxi for the night and offers the driver $300 for the night, but that seems very low, even for 2008 money. She knocks him down to $140 because he kept looking in his rearview mirror when she was in the backseat changing. While I'm sure he snuck looks when he wasn't supposed to, he is a taxi driver and does need to look in the rearview mirror to do his job. He would have made a lot more money by not being her chauffeur that night! 

At one of the weddings she's at, she catches the eye of a guest named Kevin (James Marsden) who notices that she's looking at her watch while she's standing besides the bride. Later, he will see her get in the cab and start changing.  

When she's back at the same wedding as Kevin, she gets knocked over when she's trying to catch the bouquet and another girl bumps into her and Jane hits her head on the floor. Kevin helps her and this is their "meet cute." He helps her to her cab and rides with her to her home. There's really no reason for him to ride with her except to advance the plot. Having a guy share a taxi with you to your home after you've just met him after hurting your head seems like a very idea but maybe that's just because I listen to too many true crime podcasts! After they introduce themselves to each other and Kevin mentions that he's a writer, he tells her that he saw her changing in the cab and knows she was at another wedding that night. She says two of her good friends happened to get married on the same day and she loves wedding. (She really must love weddings to have to go through all that! I think you just need to choose one wedding to attend and just buy an extra nice gift for the one you missed.) He asks her, "Which part? The forced merriment, the horrible music, or the bad food?" I'm going to hazard a guess that Kevin does not feel the same about weddings as Jane does! Obviously, Jane is not impressed with his disdain for weddings. 

After Jane is dropped off at her apartment and the taxi drives off with Kevin, he sees something on the floor and it's Jane's day planner. Actually, she'll refer to it as her FiloFax later on, a word I was not familiar with. I guess that's a brand name? I will say they do look pretty nice and I kind of want one now even though I would probably never use it! He's about to tell the driver to turn back, but changes his mind. 

At Jane's place, we get a quick glance of the coat closet that holds all of her bridesmaids dresses. Since there are so many of them and a few of them have pouffy skirts, it's almost impossible for her to shut the double doors. There are several hooks on the inside of the doors that hold purses and hats. Her idea of unwinding after a big day is sitting down and reading The New York Journal's "Commitments" section, which is articles about people getting married written by a Malcolm Doyle. The wedding-obsessed Jane loves reading about couples' upcoming nuptials and how they met. 

Well, guess what? The next day we see that Kevin works at The New York Journal. (Do you think it's a mix between The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal? Because if you do, you would be totally wrong.) He's Malcolm Doyle. He's the one that writes the romantic and heartfelt stories that Jane loves so much. I do appreciate that the movie doesn't make this some stupid "twist" for the audience to find out later; they tell you who he is in the scene after we see Jane reading that section of the paper. Now, she won't find out for awhile, but for now, the audience knows who he is. Kevin tells his boss he's got a great idea for a story and is hoping it will get him out of writing for the Commitments section because he hates it and wants to be writing "real" stories. His boss agrees and tells him he has one chance to write a story that will impress her. 

At Jane's job, she sees there are a basket of flowers on her desk with no note. She thinks they might be from George. Everyone she works with knows she has it bad for him. Everyone but George that is. 

One of Jane's co-workers/friends, Casey, is played by Judy Greer, and I admit, when I first saw her, I immediately recognized her but I couldn't think of her name! I did eventually remember it a few minutes later, but it made me think of this commercial she was in about a year ago, you know the one where she goes, "What is my name?" I'm sorry that I almost forgot your name, Judy Greer!

Jane's beautiful younger sister, Tess (Malin Ackerman), comes to visit. She's been living in Italy for the past six months where she designs handbags...I think? I'm not sure. All I know she's involved in the fashion industry because she mentions that "the fall fashion shows are done." She's staying with Jane and calls her apartment "tiny and cute" and there's no way that apartment would be considered "tiny" for NYC! 

One of Jane's co-workers (played by Krysten Ritter) is having an engagement party and Jane invites her sister (oh, she's going to regret that), but Tess tells her she's meeting friends, but she might show up later. 

At the party, George asks Jane if she got "that thing" he left on her desk that morning and she gets excited, thinking he's talking about the flowers, but later, she'll realize he was referring to a dry cleaning slip he left on her desk. Ouch. To make matters worse, her beautiful sister with her beautiful blonde hair (damn that Malin Ackerman and her Swedish-born beauty!) comes sauntering in the room in a beautiful dress and catches the eye of George. These guys hit it off fast and I mean fast. Jane sees it happening right in front of her and she is devastated, but she doesn't let it show. It gets even worse when Kevin shows up (since he had her FiloFax, he knew about the engagement party) and asks Jane if she got the flowers. Yeah, I knew they were from him. He returns her FiloFax to her. 

Tess and George go out for drinks and Jane starts cleaning her kitchen at three in the morning because her sister still isn't back yet. When Tess comes back, she barely even notices that her sister is cleaning at an ungodly hour and instead asks her if she thinks it's weird that she went out with her boss and Jane says no even though the way she's acting, she's obviously not okay with it. But her sister is oblivious (her head is in the clouds) and tells her she and George are having lunch tomorrow.

Tess wants to know all about George, so Jane tells her that he dropped out of college and "climbed every peak in the world" which makes sense since he "would rather spend all his time outside than anywhere else." He started his business, Urban Everest, from his apartment and turned it into "one of the most eco-friendly, philanthropic businesses in the world." I still have no idea what exactly the business sells or does, but I'm going to say it sells outdoor camping equipment. He also has a dog that he loves more than anything and doesn't eat red meat. Tess is all dreamy, commenting about how he sounds amazing, but Jane is quick to point out that he also has flaws and cites him hating cashews as one. The hell? How is that a flaw? Another "flaw" is that he doesn't wear socks with sneakers, which is a bit odd, but again, who cares. Tess even points out that those aren't flaws.

They have breakfast with their dad the next morning (I should mention their mother died when they were both younger) and he asks Tess how long she's in town. Jane confirms with her that it's only two weeks, but Tess says "It depends on how a few things pan out." This has Jane a little freaked out and at work, she's in a very bad mood because Tess is also there, flirting with George (who called her that morning) and when Jane flips through her FiloFax, she is annoyed that Kevin has written his name and number in several pages of it. 

George has a "little brother" who he's a Big Brother for named Pedro, who's probably eleven or twelve. When he introduces him to Tess, she says "Hola, Pedro" in a really loud voce even though he literally just spoke English seconds before. George tells Jane that he and Tess are taking Pedro to his baseball game and invites her to join them. She refuses at first, but he insists that she join them, joking that her boss is a jerk.  

At the concession stand, George orders some Cokes and fries and asks them if they want anything else. Jane says she wants a chili dog and asks Tess if she wants one too. Tess says no, replying that she's recently become a vegetarian (probably when she found out George was one!). Of course, this prompts George to tell her that he's a vegetarian too. Tess tells him that every time she goes hiking, she brings her own "homemade tofurky jerky". While all this is going on, Jane is making a WTF face. Probably because she knows her sister isn't a vegetarian and doesn't like the outdoors. George tells her that she doesn't seem like "the kind of girl that hits the trails" and I get it because she wears heels and always has her hair and make up done and is usually wearing outfits that aren't exactly for the great outdoors. She tells him that she loves "all the outdoorsy type of stuff" and I laughed when when she said "like hiking and biking and climbing...up things." 

We next get a montage of George and Tess getting closer and Jane having to witness all of it. One evening, before leaving work, Jane notices that George forgot his wallet (it's on his desk under a bunch of papers) and she looks at his schedule and sees he's at a restaurant. She takes a taxi there and when she walks in, there are roses on a table and two waiters lift up a sign that says, "Will you marry me?" George comes out and tells them to put the sign down because "she's not the one." Ouch! Then Tess walks in at that moment and the sign goes back up and George's dog comes out with the ring box around its neck and George starts to propose. Jane is trying to get the hell out of there (I don't blame her!), but a band comes out and starts playing and they're blocking her path. It's all so awkward. Even if Jane didn't have feelings for George, it would still be incredibly awkward as she's sort of unwillingly becomes part of this proposal. You would think George would thank her for bringing his wallet, then wait for her to leave before he started his proposal to Tess. The restaurant appears to be empty, so he must have rented it out for the evening. 

Things start happening pretty fast. Tess tells Jane that Malcolm Doyle (and we all know who he really is!) wants to do a Commitments column on her and George. We also find out they're getting married in three weeks! This seems insane because that's probably the amount of time they've known each other, if that! This is because Tess wants to get married at the Boathouse in Central Park because that's where her and Jane's parents got married. She had called several times and there was no availability for eighteen months, but the ninth time she called, she got lucky because there was a cancellation hence the reason the wedding is in three weeks. 

While Jane is with the newly engaged couple to order a cake at a bakery, Kevin comes in and Jane asks what he's doing there. He introduces himself to the couple as Malcolm Doyle and Jane is surprised (but not the audience!). She is super mortified when Tess introduces her (Jane) to Malcolm and tells him she's "obsessed" with his stories and that she's his "number one fan". When asked why he said his name was Kevin, he tells her that is his name and he uses Malcolm for the byline so he doesn't "get stalked by the crazy brides." Jane is not happy because he's been lying to her this whole time. She takes him aside to tell him this; he replies that he told her he was a writer but didn't tell her what he wrote. Jane doesn't understand because he writes "the most beautiful things." She asks him, "Do you actually believe in love and marriage and just pretend to be a cynic, or are you actually a cynic who knows how to spin romantic crap for girls like me." He tells it's the latter which probably just enrages her even more! 

Later, Kevin comes over to Jane's place and tells her he has to interview the friends and family of the engaged couple. (You would think he would call to make this appointment or ask her to set up a time for an interview when he saw her at the bakery.) Jane isn't too thrilled to talk to him, but agrees to do it for her sister. When he asks how she feels about Tess's "whirlwind romance", she tells him she couldn't be happier. 

It doesn't take long before he sees the closet full of her bridesmaid dresses. (Well, it's not that hard since the doors won't stay shut!) He is flabbergasted that she kept them all and when asked why (something I'm sure every viewer was wondering), she replies, "I have a lot of friends and I like to keep them." WTF? This makes no sense. I'm sure she has pictures of her in these dresses next to the bride; isn't that enough for her? Why is she keeping all these dresses (many she'll never wear again) in a pretty good-sized closet where she could keep other, more practical things like coats and shoes and boots and umbrellas and cold-weather gear. Hell, she could even keep a vacuum in there if she wanted! Why not give them to a consignment shop? That's what my mom did after I wore the dress the one time I was a bridesmaid. Holding on to all of these dresses is just weird and unhealthy and does Jane have a therapist? Because maybe she needs one. Now, if she had been a bridesmaid only once, maybe twice, even three times, I wouldn't really blink about her keeping her dresses, but twenty-seven? TWENTY F***ING SEVEN dresses? The hell? (Well, technically I guess it's 26 because the 27th will come in play later.)

Kevin sarcastically tells her it makes sense she would want to keep all of them because they're so beautiful. She replies that they're not that bad and he wants to see one that's "not that bad". She picks out an olive green dress which he thinks the color is "vomit". She says the bride told her it would look good on anyone and into his recorder (in front of her, no less!), he states that she's "slightly delusional and will believe anything anybody tells her." She tells him she's going to show him he's wrong and goes to her bridegroom to change into the dress.

While she's gone, he snaps a few photos of all the dresses in the closet and takes one of her when she comes back. He admit the dress itself isn't that bad, but thinks the color is still awful. 

Guess what happens next? Of course it's a montage of Jane in all the dresses! At first, I was going to do something insane and count all the dresses to see if there were indeed twenty-seven (or twenty-six) and I was even going to take notes on some of the dresses, but then I realized, I bet someone already did that for me. And I was right. Some dresses are worse than others and some are just god awful. They must have had Katherine Heigl try on all the dresses and take pictures of her in them because you see Kevin going through his camera and see all the pictures of her in the different dresses. We also see some flashbacks of her at the weddings, mostly theme weddings like where she's riding a horse in a cowgirl getup or underwater in scuba gear. Who the hell gets married underwater? I mean, besides a mermaid? 

Jane has a lot of fun trying on all the dresses. She tells Kevin she doesn't mind wearing the dresses because she knows it means a lot to the bride and she wants to make her friends happy and she knows when it's her big day, they'll be there for her too. Hmm, could this be foreshadowing? (Yes, it totally is.)

Kevin's boss asks him how his article is going and he tells her he's still working on it. She reads what he has so far and likes it and wants to run it next Sunday on the front page of the section. He wants to hold it a week because he's not quite done with it and tells his boss that Jane is more than "a perpetual bridesmaid" and that "there's a lot more to her than that." He asks for another week and his boss agrees. 

A few things are revealed in the next couple of scenes. We find out that Kevin is cynical about marriage because he was once married and his wife left him for his college roommate. Actually, Jane randomly guesses that for the reason why he hates marriage and turns out she was right! We really don't get too much about this backstory. 

Also, Kevin finds out that Jane is in love with her sister's fiancé. Jane is meeting George to go over the menu and Kevin needs to talk to Jane about something and he finds out where she is, so he sees her chatting and laughing with George. I don't know if I would surmise that she's in love with him just because they're enjoying each other's company, but whatever, I guess they need it for the sake of the plot. Before Kevin had arrived and interrupted them, George was telling Jane how much he admires Tess because "she's not afraid to be herself" which we all know is a lie! You can tell Jane wants to tell him that everything Tess has told him is pretty much a lie (she's not a vegetarian, she's not a dog person, and she's not a girl who loves the outdoors!), but she just tells him that she's happy that he and Tess found each other. 

After Kevin shows up, he offers to go with Jane to pick up linens or something. George was supposed to go, but he's gotta meet his parents and yada, yada, yada, they movie just needs an excuse for Jane and Kevin to be in the same car together and that's how they got there. While they're driving, a heavy rainstorm has started. Kevin is goading her about George and tells her he knew she had a thing for her sister's fiancé "the second I saw you mooning over him over polenta." Jane denies this, but he keeps egging her on and she gets angry and soon the car runs off the road and spins around and falls into a muddy ditch by a tree. They're unharmed but there's no way they'll be able to get the car out of the ditch. Then end up at a karaoke bar where they have a drink (and maybe a few more) and start dancing on the bar while singing "Benny and the Jets." After they get down from the bar, Kevin admits to her that he "cried like a baby during the Keller wedding" and this makes Jane passionately kiss him. Earlier at the bar, while having their first drink, she was quizzing him on the articles he wrote about the couples he interviewed and he tells her he didn't remember that particular one. They end up making out, then return to the car where they have sex. Okay, ten bucks says he didn't cry at all during that wedding, but just told her because he knew it would score points with her. Yes, maybe I really just am that cynical! 

The next morning they grab breakfast at a diner while they wait for a tow truck to get the car. Some guy comes up to them and remembers them as "Benny and the Jets" from the night before. The waitress pours their coffee and tells Jane, "You're that girl." Jane thinks the's referring to the karaoke bar, but she's actually referring to seeing her in the paper as Kevin's article has come out one week earlier then he expected. Guess his boss didn't listen to him after all! It's a full page article with many pictures (if not all!) of Jane and her many bridesmaid dresses. The caption reads, "Always, Always, Always a Bridesmaid." Kevin tries to explain he told his editor not to run it and that nobody reads that section anyway. Jane is pissed and walks away, but not before slapping him. When she comes home, Tess is there and she's also read the article. She's furious because Kevin wrote, "If Jane is the prototypical accommodating bridesmaid, than her sister, Tess, is cast as the overbearing, overindulged bride-to-be, who at any moment one worries might start stomping around Manhattan, berating fire and swatting planes from the sky." Hmm, have we seen any evidence of this? Tess may be a bit high-maintenance, but I wouldn't compare her to a Bridezilla. 

Kevin tries to call Jane many times to apologize, but she won't answer his calls. Not only is Jane angry at him, but she's also angry at her sister when she finds out that, in a very Pretty in Pink move, she has cut up their mother's dress (which her father said she could wear) and used parts of it in her new, more modern dress. Jane is furious that she did that and goes off on her, telling her that she's going to have to tell George the truth about her. 

It just so happens that the couple's engagement party is that night and Jane had the responsibility of creating the slideshow. Tess had given her a script to read during it and wants to make sure that Jane reads it word for word and Jane promises her she will. Tess must think very highly of herself as this is the opening line she wrote for her sister to read: "Tess and George are a perfect couple. No, a divine couple. A couple whose love is the stuff of myths. Their compatibility is so exact that is can only be described as having been designed by the gods." 

Jane is true to her word and reads what Tess wrote to her, but she has picked photos of her sister that aren't the most flattering. Not that she doesn't look good in them, but while the photos of George show him volunteering at a soup kitchen or visiting the UN, the pictures of Tess are of her flirting with boys or wearing a bikini for a car wash or stuffing her face with barbecue ribs. 

Jane ends with the words Tess wrote for her to read: "And today Tess and George still share the same values. Their love is based on a deep understanding and acceptance of who the other person really is."

Things get worse when Casey tries to clear this awkward moment by shooing Jane away and inviting Pedro up to say a few words. He mentions how great George is as his Big Brother and how happy he is that George has Tess who he calls "really cool" because she's going to help him "start [his] own cleaning business." In an earlier scene, Jane had gone to George's apartment where her sister was staying. George was gone for the day and when Jane comes over, she hears a vacuum, and then sees Pedro vacuuming. Tess tells Jane that she's paying him to clean the apartment, but wants to keep it a secret. Guess Pedro was so excited about his new business that he couldn't keep his mouth shut! Boy, George was not happy about that! I think he (maybe) could have forgiven Tess for lying about being a vegetarian, but her exploiting Pedro like that definitely wasn't a good look. 

To no one's surprise, the wedding is off and when Tess tells this to Jane, she adds, "I hope you're happy." (For the record, she isn't, but let's be real, I bet she's a little relieved that her younger sister isn't marrying her boss). Jane goes outside, upset, and Kevin is there to apologize since she won't answer his calls. He apologizes and says he wanted to be there for her because he knew this night was gonna be rough for her and tells her he thinks she "deserves to be taken care of for a change." It's a sincere apology and he also gifts her with a Blackberry. He tells her it's "so [she] doesn't have to carry around the crazy FiloFax from 1987." Considering you can still buy FiloFaxes in 2024, I very much doubt hers is from '87! Also, maybe she preferred to carry it around and it's just easier for her to write things down then type it down. I get he meant well, but he shouldn't have just assumed she would have wanted a new phone.  

The sisters talk and Tess tells Jane that she stayed in New York because she was fired from her job (still not exactly sure what she did) and her Italian boyfriend dumped her. As she tells Jane, when she met George, he was nice to her and treated her well and she "wanted to be someone that he wanted"; she "was trying to be someone who deserved him, someone he could respect." She basically tells Jane she was trying to be her. 

Later that day, Jane gets a call from George who asks her to be his date to some benefit thing (since he no longer has a significant other in his life!) that really doesn't matter. This scene is just so she can apologize to him for what she did during the slide show. It's also so she can quit her job and confess that the only reason she stayed was because she was in love with him. They end up kissing (twice) and realize neither of them feels sparks for the other. Can you imagine kissing someone that you liked and they didn't feel anything for you? Ouch. But luckily, these two kids' feelings are mutual. I didn't like this scene. I get why Jane quits, but I don't know why we need to see them kiss. I guess this is just to show the audience that these two aren't meant for each other. Well, duh. It just seems so unnecessary when we know she's going to end up with Kevin, if anyone. 

Speaking of which...they get together and one year passes and the movie ends with their wedding. I've heard some people on podcast reviews of this movie complain that it doesn't make sense that the anti-marriage Kevin would want to get married. Well, he was burned by his first wife, but then he met Jane and his views on love and marriage changed. That's the story I'm going with anyway. 

The 27th dress is Jane's wedding dress. Remember when I said it was foreshadowing when Jane told Kevin that her friends would there for her big day just like she was there for theirs? Well, we see Tess and Casey as her bridesmaids in strapless pale yellow dresses, then the camera pans out and we see a line of women wearing all of her bridesmaid dresses. I assume they're all the brides of which the original bridesmaid dress was worn at their wedding and now Jane is getting back at them for making her wear these horrendous dresses  returning the favor and letting them be in her wedding. After they show Tess and Casey, we see Krysten Ritter and she's wearing the black goth dress with the spiky collar which is the dress Jane wore when she was a bridesmaid for her wedding. 

I am a little confused by a couple of things:

1. I Googled a still shot of this scene and counted the bridesmaid dresses. There are 27, not counting Tess's and Casey's. I thought Jane's wedding dress was supposed to be the 27th so shouldn't there only be 26 women modeling 26 dresses? I looked at two rankings of the 27 dresses and both of them had Jane's wedding dress as #1 so they're counting the wedding dress as one of the titular 27 dresses. I suppose if I took the time, I could look at the photo and see which dress wasn't part of the ranking, but, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. 

2. After Jane quits her job and before she reconciles with and starts dating Kevin, we see her clean out her closet and throw away her dresses! At least, I assume she threw them away because she's stuffed them into several trash bags. I guess she could have given them to a consignment shop, but I would think she would put them in garment bags if she did that. So if she threw them out, how did these women wear her dresses? Did they have to go out and buy a replica of them? Did she go digging through the trash? (I highly doubt that!) Or did the movie just forget that scene or just not care? 

Who are we?

Wild Child

Director: Nick Moore

Cast: Emma Roberts, Natasha Richardson, Alex Pettyfer, Juno Temple, Aidan Quinn

Released: August 15, 2008

So this is a movie I had never heard of until recently when I came upon somebody's review of it on YouTube. (Don't even ask me the rabbit hole I went down to find this because I don't even remember!) The release date I posted is the UK release date; this didn't seem to get a theatrical release in the U.S.; I could only find a DVD premiere date of November 17, 2009 (so over a year since the UK theatrical date!) 

Personally, I don't think the "child" (she's a teenager, not a child) is not all that "wild", more just self-centered. But I guess "Wild Child" is a catchier name than "Self-Centered Teen." Plus, they can play that Iggy Pop song at the end (though it's a different version). You know, the one that goes, "Well, I'm just outta school like I'm real, real cool, gotta dance like a fool..." Emma Roberts plays Poppy, our titular character. Let's do a quick ranking of the young Emmas. It has to be Stone, Watson, Roberts, right? Or I guess you could switch Stone and Watson. Not that I don't like Emma Roberts or think she doesn't have her fans, but I feel like Emmas Stone and Watson have a little more clout and made it to the A-list without having a superstar famous aunt. 

Okay, so Poppy is a seventeen-year-old rich AF girl who lives in a Malibu mansion right on the ocean with an infinity pool and a closetful of Chanel and Gucci. I have no idea what her dad (Aidan Quinn) does, but whatever it is, he is making bank. Poppy has a younger sister, Molly, who seems like a normal kid and doesn't get off a snooty rich kid vibe at all. 

Poppy and Molly's mother died six years ago in a car accident and their dad is dating a new woman, Rosemary, who is moving in. We never meet her (not important enough to cast, I guess!), but it sounds like she is much younger than his deceased wife. Poppy is not fond of her and doesn't want her moving in so she invites all her friends over and when the moving truck with all her dad's girlfriend's things arrive, it's a free-for-all for all the friends and she just gives away boxes of clothes and electronics and whatever else there is. I love how all the movers (there are 4 of them) are standing there like this is normal. They have to know they're witnesses to a burglary, right?  Poppy says to her friends, in front of the movers, "You can keep it or throw it away." Like I mentioned, the girlfriend isn't even cast, so where is she supposed to be when all this is going on? Is she back at her original home? Why isn't she with her stuff? And where's the dad? He's not there either (well, not at first). If I were moving in somewhere, I would want to make sure I was with my stuff. 

Not only does Poppy give away the girlfriend's things, but she jumps into the ocean with a bunch of her clothes, ruining them. Their house is on a cliff and Poppy just jumps off the ledge their house resides on (and this won't be the only time Poppy jumps off this ledge!) This just seems kinda....dangerous to me. Maybe it's not as high as it seems, but it certainly looks that way!  Even her friends are all, "OMG, WTF did she just do? Where is she? Did she come up?" Poppy's dad arrives when she's jumped into the ocean and demands that she come back up. How the hell did she even get back to her house. It looks like she is coming up stairs, but it's hard to see where they lead from. Do they have stairs that go all the way down to the water? Why does she even need to swim in the ocean if she has a pool? I'm so confused. 

Her dad tells her that this is the last straw and she's going to boarding school in England. Poppy doesn't take him seriously because apparently he's used this threat many times before and never got sent away. She comments that just because her mom also went to boarding school in England, it's not going to "magically straighten her out." This is not an empty threat and Poppy will really be going to boarding school in England. Okay, why England? Yes, we know that her mom went to boarding school in England, but maybe her mom was British? (We never are confirmed what her nationality was). As Molly comments in another scene, it's so far away. Why not just send Poppy to some boarding school on the East Coast? It just seems like a hassle to send her to a whole other country when there are plenty of boarding schools in the U.S. that she can go to. I'm just saying. 

 

Even though Poppy is a spoiled stuck-up rich teen with spoiled, stuck-up rich friends, they do show a softer side to her and we see she does have a good relationship with her sister. Molly tells Poppy she's going to miss her and asks who will cut the crusts off her sandwiches. Now you're probably thinking sweet little Molly is five or six...no, this girl is at least twelve and she can't cut off her own damn crust? Seriously? Poppy shows her ugly-American side by telling her sister, "At least they speak American there, right?" OMG, I just can't. It astounds me the number of people who think "American" (or "Mexican") is a language. Sure, there's American English, but the language is still English. I guess Poppy's father paid her way in because there's no way she got in with her own merit.

Poppy and her BFF, Ruby (who might suck even more than Poppy...but we are supposed to like Poppy by the end of this (spoiler alert!) so that's not too surprising), are doing research on England and Abbey Mount, the boarding school she will be attending (NOT a real school, but it was filmed at an actual boarding school in Cobham, Kent.) Poppy is dismayed when she finds that it rains 200 day out of the year in England (that is A LOT!) and she learns that Abbey Mount is a boarding school for girls, ages 11-17. I love the indignation in her voice when she says, "Founded in 1797" (I think it's hilarious she's so disgusted with how old the institution is and how the building has so many bricks.)

This movie wastes no time getting her to England because six minutes into the movie, she's there. I did watch the trailer for this and they seemed to have cut some Malibu scenes. I think they just wanted to get to the boarding school storyline. Even though it's a rainy, overcast day, she's wearing high heels and sunglasses. She looks ridiculous, but I do like her white coat with blue flowers, though I suspect it's not a rain coat. 

Mrs. Kingsley, the headmistress (played by the late Natasha Richardson in her last film role), introduces herself to Poppy who tries to talk her way out of going to the school, but before she can say anything, Mrs. Kingsley quickly shuts her down, telling her, "To me negotiation is like a nightclub, not something I tend to enter into."

Poppy is introduced to two people who she doesn't make very good impressions on. The first is Kate, who is her "big sister" and is to show her around school. She's also one of her roommates. Poppy tells her she already has a sister and Kate tries to explain she's more like a friend and Poppy tells her she chooses her own friends and that Kate "doesn't make the cut" (even though Kate is one of the more popular girls at the school without being a mean girl). Poppy is also intruded to Harriet, the snooty, rich Head Girl who you would think would have a few things in common with Poppy, but Harriet is aristocratic snobby, not material snobby. Harriet takes an instant disliking to Poppy and the feeling is mutual. 

Poppy is sharing a room with Kate and three other girls: Josie, Kiki and Jennifer (played by Juno Temple), who goes by the not-so-flattering nickname, Drippy, for some reason I either didn't catch or they didn't explain. Poppy doesn't realize she's sharing a room with four other girls and when she enters and sees them unpacking, she tells them she's been assigned this room and that they need to leave. The other girls just laugh and continue to unpack. Poppy tries to use her phone, but she can't get a signal. The girls tell her there's only two spots where she can get reception, but don't reveal where. They also tell her it's a moot point because they are only allowed to use their cell phones on the weekend and they are confiscated the rest of the week. Poppy has an iPhone (and this is 2008, so she has one of the first models) and scoffs at the other girls for using flip phones.

Poppy is also a bit ahead of her time because we see her use sanitizer on everything she has to touch (especially if it's in a public place). When she moves into her dorm, she squirts it all over the table next to her bed. When they go into town and she has to ride the bus, she takes out the sanitizer and douses her hands in it. You know this girl was ready when the pandemic hit! 

Her suitcase is delivered after she arrives and is left outside on the lawn in the pouring rain and everything gets ruined. Hmm, I guess you could say that this is the universe paying her back for what she did to Rosemary's clothes. We also see she bought several bottles of water (in case she gets thirsty). One of the girls wryly comments that they "have an amazing thing in the UK called a tap." Yeah, that's a bit extra. 

The school has a matron/housekeeper (played by Shirley Henderson) who checks to make sure the girls are wearing their uniforms and following rules. She comes by to collect their phones and Poppy is rude to her and wants her to hand wash her clothes. She tries to speak Spanish and Italian to her and she tells Poppy she is "Scottish, not remedial." Poppy curses and ends up giving the whole dorm two Sundays detentions. Poppy tries to "handle" it by bribing Matron with $100, but ends up giving all the girls a third detention. 

At dinner, they are served an unappetizing meal of some mystery meat, potatoes, broccoli, and carrots. First of all, that's WAY too many vegetables. Also, you'd think a school like this would have better quality and more appetizing food. Poppy tells the other girls she can't eat it. The girls assume she is either bulimic or anorexia, but she tells them, "I'm a pescatarian Monday through Wednesday; fruitarian Thursday through Sunday; and vegetarian, always." If I were one one of the other girls, I would have said, "Well, it's a good thing you have THREE vegetables on your plate you can eat!" 

We are introduced to Freddie, Mrs. Kinglsey's son who, for some unknown reason, seems to live at the dorms with his mother every once and awhile. I know it sounds super weird, but it's not as weird as it sounds, though maybe it does. I honestly don't know why he hangs out at this school so much other than he likes the attention all the girls are giving him. Freddie is really only used as a plot device. Harriet has a massive crush on him and we'll see later that she has photos of him plastered all over her bedroom mirror which isn't creepy at all. Freddie is played by Alex Pettyfer and he's almost too blonde; too tall, too good-looking. And, of course, he is the perfect gentleman. He is one of those movie-perfect boyfriends that doesn't exist in real life. 

When Poppy runs into Harriet in a crowded corridor, Harriet, who already has disdain for Poppy, snidely tells her (and imagine this being said in a snooty British accent), "Learn the rules. When it comes to right-of-way, there is a hierarchy: Teachers, prefects, scholars, dogs, vermin, Americans." The disdain in her voice when she says "Americans" is palpable. I thought it was hilarious when she said that, even though I am American. I hope these girls don't think all Americans are like Poppy! Also, wouldn't a scholar be higher than a prefect? *shrug* I did think it was funny that even though Poppy is wearing heels, Harriet (in regular school shoe) still towers over her. 

Because there is only internet connection in the computer lab, Poppy has to sneak out of her room at night to go there to write Ruby. Yes, obviously, she could use the computer lab during the day (which we do see), but with this scene they are setting us up for another scene that will come later in the movie. Poppy writes Ruby, "Two weeks in this place and I'm going out of my mind. These girls are all ugly losers." Gee, what a bitch! She sees Drippy and follows her and watches her go into the walk-in freezer where she eats ice cream. A fire alarm goes off (for a fire drill) and this is how Poppy meets Freddie when she unknowingly sneaks into his room. He's taking a bath, hidden behind a curtain and asks her name. The next day, Poppy realizes it was him when he drives up in his fancy sports car during the girls' lacrosse practice. Harriet is also on the team and is upset that Freddie knows Poppy's name and laments, "Freddie's got a crush on me". (Does he?)

Poppy has been called to Mrs. Kingsley's office who asks her what she wants to get out of this school and Poppy replies, "To get out of this school." Mrs. Kingsley tells her this school hasn't produced anybody of note, but what they do produce are "smart, independent, free-thinking, good-hearted girls, who remain friends for life." I don't want to spoil anything, but you might get a sense of the direction Poppy will be going by the end of the film. Mrs. Kingsley has faith that Poppy is that kind of girl. The door to Mrs. Kingsley's office is painted to look like a bookcase, so it looks like she has a hidden book case in her office (even though the door knob kind of defeats that purpose!) 

Poppy finds out that her roommates still have their phones that they keep hidden and had just given the matron decoys. She and Kate have a heart-to-heart when Kate lends her phone for Poppy to use. Poppy asks her why she's doing this since she's been a total a**hole and Kate corrects her by saying, "No, you behave like an a**hole. There's a difference." She figures Poppy's been acting the way she's been acting because she's scared and a little homesick (hence why she offers to let Poppy use her phone). I think Kate and the other girls still want Poppy gone because Kate tells her if she's serious about getting out of this school, she will have to be expelled and she and the others plan on helping Poppy achieve this goal. If she is up for expulsion, she'll have to face the Honor Court which is like a trial in front of the other students, teachers, and Mrs. Kinglsey.

By the way, I think there's only two teachers at this whole school (not counting Mrs. Kingsley, but she's not a teacher). At least, we only see two teachers: the French teacher, Mr. Nellist, and the gym teachers, Miss Rees-Withers. (Is that a shoutout to Reese Witherspoon?) They have a bit of a budding romance throughout the film. It doesn't really add anything to the plot, it's just there as something comical. 

A montage of Poppy and her roommates setting up and playing pranks is shown and let's do a ranking of the pranks she pulls from least offensive to probably could have had serious consequences for that:

4. Jams tape into the matron's car. Kate and Poppy put a heavy metal tape in the matrons' car and Poppy breaks the knobs on the radio so she can't turn it off or turn it down. In a later scene, we will see the girls on a bus going to town with the matron driving by in her car, loud heavy metal music blaring (she's driving a convertible). Yes, that would be very annoying if you had loud music you couldn't turn off, but she just needs to go to a mechanic to get it fixed.

3. Turns pool into a sundae. So the girls put red food dye in the pool which has to be a pain to drain and clean, but other than that not too bad. There are huge plastic ice cream scoops and cherries and bananas they also throw in the pool, but none of the food items are real. If they were real, this would have been ranked higher. 

2. Embarrasses the French teacher. Poppy has changed the audio lesson plan so the girls are hearing about "a ginger haired teacher making out with the sports teacher" en francais and they can check out the photos on the Mount Abbey website. (Not sure if there were actual photos or not). Of course, this is super embarrassing, but nothing too scandalous or explicit. 

1. "Naughty Schoolgirl Harriet." Yeah, this is just inviting a bunch of dirty old men and pedophiles to call the school. Poppy and the others go to a phone booth in town and plaster posters of Harriet's head on a model (presumably, a porn star) wearing only underwear and a blouse with a school tie. They've printed "Naughty Schoolgirl Harriet" on it along with the school's phone number and the sign also says "satisfaction guaranteed" and "eager to please." In the word that Poppy keeps using throughout the film, "Ewww." We see Harriet receiving one of these calls (though she must have received more!) and she looks very confused as she's describing what she's wearings. She says her underwear is "polyester; sturdy and practical", which I'm sure her caller loved to hear! And when (offscreen) she's asked if she's been naughty, she haughtily replies, "No, I have certainly not been naughty. My disciplinary record is exemplary." Yes, it was a funny scene and Harriet has no idea what's going on, but if you think about it, it's really creepy and disturbing and these girls are inviting predators and criminals to call the school.

The girls have told Poppy that she needs to get the blame for all of these stunts so she can get expelled and while she makes it clear she is the culprit of each of these pranks, no matter what she does, she doesn't get in any serious trouble. Her roommates tell her Mrs. Kingsley is "cutting her a lot of slack." They think that at the dance that's coming up that weekend, she should kiss Freddie. Not only will it anger Mrs. Kingsley because he's her son and fraternizing is forbidden, but it will also make Harriet jealous and furious. She has to make sure she does it on school grounds so she can get caught. Poppy is excited about the dance and thinks they should all dress up "fancy", so the next day they go into town to do some shopping. There must be some field trip into town because Poppy and her roommates aren't the only ones riding a bus into town. They are all wearing their normal, everyday clothes and Poppy is wearing shorts and a sleeveless top, which the matron deems she looks like she could be in a window in Amsterdam (is she calling her a hooker?), so Harriet "offers" her an oversized yellow sweater with a stitching of a Yorkie on it with daisies embroidered at the bottom of it. 

 

They go to one of the second-hand shops where the money they use to buy their clothes goes to help with cancer research. Poppy isn't thrilled about this since she's used to shopping for and buying designer clothes and wanted to go shopping on Oxford street, even though they're nowhere near London. She thinks it will be a challenge to find five dance-worthy outfits, but likes the challenge and we see a fun shopping montage of all the girls playing dress up and all of them, even Poppy, are having a fun time. Poppy tells them, "If we could just call this stuff vintage and add three zeroes to the price tag, I could totally get into it." Really? This bitch would rather pay $10,000 for something that is $10?  Hey, Poppy, here's an idea, since you're so freakin' rich, why don't you donate the remaining $9,990 and then it will feel like you're shopping at some designer boutique and you can give your money to a good cause. But, let's be honest, she doesn't have that kind of money on her. 

Poppy takes out her phone and snaps a picture of all five of them wearing their new garbs. She exclaims, "Malibu moment!" and tells the girls, "Remember what I taught you" and they all say, "Who are we?" before she snap the photo. When I watched the trailer, they show a scene of Poppy and her Malibu friends saying, "Who are we?" before taking a photo so that explains where that came from. There must be another deleted scene where Poppy tells her Mount Abbey roommates about this. 

The girls next go to a hair salon where Poppy gives the stylist (played by Nick Frost) all these demands she wants done to her hair, but he refuses and suggests other ideas, but she's having none of it. Finally, they compromise and she agrees when he suggests making her natural. Her hair goes back to it natural dark brown color and her extensions are taken out. One of the girls comments, "You look so English" and Poppy says she looks like her mom. Her saying that after the "You look so English" comment makes me wonder if her mother was English. This is something we will never find out. I must say, I do think her new hair style/color looks better on her. This is part of her transformation where she's shedding her spoiled Malibu persona. 

The dance has the theme of "movie magic" even though Poppy's roommates have told her nobody ever dresses up for the dances' themes except for teachers, uncool kids, and Harriet. And sure enough we see Mrs. Kingsley dressed up as Velma from Scooby-Doo (I know it was made into a movie, but I think of Scooby-Doo more as an animated TV show), Mr. Nellist is dressed as James Bond, and Miss Rees-Withers is Sporty Spice from Spice World, I guess?? Harriet goes all out and dresses as Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice because a friend told her she overheard Freddie say that she looks "exactly like Keira Knightley" (she doesn't). She even goes so far as to have her minions tell Mr. Nellist, who's DJing the party, to stop the pop music that's playing and change the music to something classical-sounding (I assume it's from the soundtrack to P&P) so Harriet can make her entrance in her elaborate costume. (Of course she couldn't dress in a soccer uniform and go as Keira Knightly from Bend it Like Beckham!) She walks up to Freddie and speaks a line from the movie to him, all prim and proper. It's very cringe-y. It's like, girl, just stop, you're embarrassing yourself. You can tell Freddie is not into it all and he just says "hi" to her. 

Harriet's perfect evening is ruined by Poppy when she shows up in her flirty party dress and new hair style and just grabs Freddie and starts dancing with him. Poppy does try to kiss Freddie, but they are interrupted by Harriet's minions who have sent them to keep an eye on Poppy. They decide not to tell Harriet what they saw because "she won't just shoot the messenger, she'll skin us alive first." 

Freddie tells Poppy he'll be coming back another day and asks if she wants to hang out then and she agrees. When the day comes, right before she's to meet Freddie, she's in the computer lab writing an e-mail to Ruby. Remember this. I should point out that we've seen Poppy's boyfriend back home (which I didn't even know she had, but I assume he was bigger part of al the deleted scenes) cheating on her with Ruby, so it's kind of funny Poppy is about to go on a date with another guy, even though her intentions are just to use him to get expelled. When he comes to pick her up, he wants to take her into town, but she wants to "take a romantic walk around the school grounds" so she can get caught with him. He refuses because he knows they'll both get in trouble and we see a cute montage of them on their date where they visit an old English town, sit and chat by the seaside cliffs, and go to a pub where he orders fries and bread. Is this an actual thing? It sounds terrible. She tells him, "Kinda gross, but I like it." She also tells him this is the best date she's ever been on and they kiss and you can tell she's forgotten what her intentions with him were in the first place and doesn't even care about that anymore. 

Poppy comes back to her room all, "I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!"- like, ready to share with her friends what happened with Freddie, but the four other girls are just glowering at her. It turns out, when she was in the computer lab, she forgot to log out of her e-mail (like, how do you forget to do that?) and Head Girl Harriet (it isn't revealed until later that it was Harriet, but c'mon, we all know it's her) intercepted Poppy's e-mail account and edited a few things on one of Poppy's e-mails to Ruby, then printed a few of them out and taped one on the door of their room while Poppy was on her date. It's pretty brutal when Kate begins reading the doctored e-mail: "Dear Ruby, you cannot image how retarded these idiots are. I despise village idiots, but I have to pretend to like them to get out of this hell hole." Yikes! This is (presumably and hopefully!) what Harriet wrote, but she did keep in the line about Poppy calling them "ugly losers" which isn't great and a great reminder that Poppy kinda sucks even if we're supposed to like her by now. Poppy admits she did write the loser part, "but that was weeks ago", but claims she didn't write any other part of it. One of the girls tells her the e-mail is dated today and it's from her e-mail address.  We also find out that Freddie also received this e-mail where "Poppy" writes about hooking up with the headmistress's son so she'll get expelled and calls him a "dweeb". When she tries to explain, he just slams the door in her face. 

So Poppy is all sad and friendless and the ironic part is even though she was trying to get expelled, she had started to like the place, making new, genuine friends and falling for Freddie. She's also discovered that her mother went to this school in the the late '70s. 

The scene where she sneaks out of her room and spies Drippy going into the walk-in freezer moments before there's a fire drill comes back into play in the next scene. Poppy is in the cook's sitting room (never heard of such a thing!), moping and feeling sorry for herself, also playing with a lighter, watching the flame go on and off. We know this is Poppy's lighter because it says "I [heart] L.A." on it; however, I'm not sure why she has one since we've never seen her smoke. You think they would have made this Chekov's lighter if it was going to play a significant part in a later scene. Oh, well, at least they set up some of the other elements. Drippy has sneaked into the freezer, but neither girl notices the other. Poppy is sitting near curtains and at one point the lighter DOES catch onto the fabric, and Poppy, freaked out, manages to put out the fire. When she hears footsteps, she drops the lighter (very convenient that she leaves the lighter on the floor) and gets out of there and goes back to her room. Moments later, a raging fire will appear where she just was and Poppy freaks out and wakes up Kate and tells her she "didn't mean to do it" and thought she had "put it out" and has her help wake everybody else so they can evacuate. On the school grounds, Mrs. Kingsley is taking roll call and Drippy isn't there. By this time, the firefighters have arrived. Poppy realizes that Drippy is in the freezer and she runs to save her, like she's an extra in Backdraft or something. Freddie is the one who finds her lighter and immediately knows it belongs to Poppy since it has "I [heart] L.A." imprinted on it. I love how he is allowed to just walk around the area where the fire started. 

There is an assembly where Mrs. Kingsley tells the person who's responsible for the fire to own up to it and that they have until the end of the day to confess and if they do, no legal charges will be filed; but if they don't, it will be passed on to the local authorities. The guilt lays so heavily on Poppy that she confesses to Mrs. Kingsley later that day and asks her to give a letter she wrote to Freddie. In it, she tells him she did plan to use him to get expelled, but once she got to know him, her feelings for him became genuine and she's never felt like that with anyone before. Mrs. Kinglsey tells her the Honor Court will decide if she's expelled, but "it's just a formality at this point." 

When the Honor Court is starting, Poppy's roommates are in their room, discussing things. They're starting to have second thoughts about Poppy's guilt (about the nasty e-mail, anyway).  The e-mails were sent at 11:40 in the morning. According to Drippy, Poppy left the computer room a few minutes after 11. Kiki was able to find out who else was using the computer lab during the time and -shocker- it was Harriet. Didn't see that one coming! Drippy points out that Poppy would never use the word "term"; she would use "samosa" - the other girls correct her that its pronounced "semester" (I guess that's not a work they use in the UK!) Drippy also admits that she  had snooped through Poppy's diary and reads an entry she found: "I think, deep breath, I kind of love them like proper friend I've known forever.....I'd probably hate them if I wasn't one of them. But I like that I'm now one of them." Aww. By this time, the girls know that Poppy never sent those e-mails and they go to the Honor Court to support her.

For some reason, without anyone asking her to, Harriet seems to be the prosecutor in Poppy's case. She keeps hounding how Poppy did this and she should be expelled. Even Mrs. Kingsley is telling her to chill out. In her statement, Poppy talks about how she won't defend her actions for what she did. She says how much she wanted to get out of this school, but now she wants to stay. She tells them, "I've learned so much being here" and talks about how she found out her mom was a student here back in 1976. She says she knows she looked like a California girl when she first started, but in her heart she knows she's an Abbey Mount girl. 

Mrs. Kingsley starts to ask her questions. Did she intend to start the fire? (No.) Was there anyone else with her? Poppy starts to say no, but then Kate, followed by her other roommates stand up and say they were with her. Soon, every girl is standing up and declaring they were with her until everybody is standing except for Harriet and her two minions. Harriet is outraged. She tells Mrs. Kingsley, "This is a conspiracy. You can't expel the whole year, and they know that." She adds that Poppy had her lighter with her and tried to burn the place down. One of her minions asks her how she knows she had the lighter because that information hadn't gotten out yet. Mrs. Kingsley also asks her how she knew about the lighter. Harriet looks scared and claims that it was mentioned. It's too bad for her she didn't know that Freddie knew about it because then she could just say he told her. 

Poppy tells her Freddie found the lighter before anyone saw it and how would she know about it unless she was there? She gets the sudden realization that Harriet started the fire. She was the one who Poppy heard when she heard footsteps. Harriet screams at Poppy, "You've turned this school upside down. You ruined everything. You started it! I only finished what YOU started." Yep, I think we just got ourselves a confession. Poppy will be able to stay and everyone is happy. Everyone hates Harriet (including her two minions) and she is sent packing. 

So during all of this, there is a B plot of Poppy being on the lacrosse team (whenever I think of lacrosse, I always think of it being played on horses, but maybe I'm thinking of polo). Poppy is a very good player and this is the first time since 1976 the lacrosse team has gone through to the championships. Her mom not only played on the lacrosse team, but was also the captain in 1976. 

Them last scene is of the girls playing in the lacrosse finals, Poppy's dad come to pick her up and he can't believe how much she looks like her mother. Poppy is happy to see him and asks him why he didn't tell her that her mom went to this school and he tells her he thought it would make her too sad, which seems like kind of a bs answer to me. I bet she would have liked that school a lot more to begin with if she knew her mom went there. I still want to know if her mom was English. 

Okay, so I did some digging and did find the beginning of the film with the deleted scenes I saw from the trailer. This is everything that happens before she goes to England. They did actually cast Rosemary, so I was wrong about that. It's possible they cut it for time, but it's probably about five or six extra minutes of footage. I think they cut it because what we see makes Poppy look like a monster and perhaps thought she couldn't be redeemable. For instance, they show her berating her housekeeper for ironing some shirt she paid $400 or some obscene amount that's suppose to look all creased. Then we see her and a group of friends (including Ruby, who seems to be the Queen Bee of their group) going to some spa day and shopping at Fred Segal and they'e just being awful to the people who work there and acting like spoiled brats. I really do believe they cut this because they wanted Poppy to have a chance at redemption and while she is still pretty awful from what we do see of her, the deleted scenes take it to a whole other level. Like I said, we do see Rosemary, Poppy's soon to be stepmother and other than being a golddigger, she does seem nice. They don't portray her as this awful woman who has plans to send Poppy and Molly to boarding school once she moves in (that's Poppy's father's job!) 

Oh, and while the credits are playing (over a version of Wild Child which is not as good as the original!) we do see Poppy has invited Freddie, Kate, Drippy, Josie, and Kiki to her Malibu house and we see that Poppy has erased that bitch, Ruby, from her life for good. The five girls jump off the ledge into the ocean and you could not pay me enough to do that because with my luck, I would probably land in the water where I either get paralyzed or die. 

Brotherly Love

Step Brothers

Director: Adam McKay

Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn

Released: July 25, 2008

Viewed in theaters: July 27, 2008

Is Step Brothers a totally stupid film? One might say unequivocally so. Did I laugh my ass off while watching it? Most definitely so! There are so many stupid moments and dialogue in this movie and some of it's so absurd which makes it so funny.

The movie knows you came to watch Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly interact as step brothers who act like they're twelve, but they're biologically forty. Brennen (Ferrell) still lives at home with his divorced mom, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) after being laid off from PetSmart and Dale (Reilly) has never gotten a job and still lives at home with his widowed dad, Robert (Richard Jenkins), who's a doctor (and Brennan is not impressed that he attended medical school at Northwestern and John Hopkins). Nancy and Robert meet at a conference and they are immediately attracted to each other and both find out they have forty-year-old sons who still live with them. Dale has always coasted off his father's accomplishments and quit college his junior yer because he wanted to join the family business even though he never went to medical school. Brennan has always been in the shadow of his younger brother, Derek (Adam Scott) who is extremely successful and a complete douche. It seems like he has some extreme self-esteem issues, which I'm sure would have been explored more if this was a drama. (By the way, I read on the IMDb page (take that with a grain of salt) that Adam McKay wanted to make this a drama and that shocked me! Now I know Ferrell and Reilly have done dramatic roles, but I don't think they're been in one together.) At least Brennan has had a job (at PetSmart), but it sounds like Dale has just mooched off his father his whole life, who seems to enable it.

Nancy and Robert get married and Nancy and Brennan move in with Robert and Dale and we soon get the first scene with the new step brothers. This all happens within the first three minutes, so, like I said, the movie knows what its audience wants.

For the time being, the two grown men will have to share a room and I just loved the heavy sigh that Dale heaves when his dad asks him to show Brennan their room. It is such a thing a teenager would do. On their way to their room, Dale shows Brennan the room with his drum set which he dubbed the "beat laboratory". His one rule is that no one is to never, ever, ever touch his drums. (Will it surprise you that Brennan will play his drums later on? No, I didn't think so.)

Unsurprisingly, Brennan and Dale don't get along and we see a montage of them doing nasty things to each other: Dale knocks Brennan off his father's boat when the family is out on the water and writes "I [heart] crystal meth" on the back of his shirt and Brennan puts make-up on Dale in the middle of the night to make it look like he has gruesome stab wounds on his forehead and neck, so when Dale is walking around the mall the next day, everyone is startled when they see him. Sure, it's a funny gag, but I find it hard to believe that Dale wouldn't have noticed it. Most people use the bathroom when they wake up in the morning and would immediately notice when they looked in the mirror! But most egregiously, he plays Dale's drums when Dale is gone. Dale knows something is up when he comes home because Brennan, who's sprawled out on the couch watching TV is all sweaty (he was really rocking that drum set) and when Dale questions him about it, he tells him it's because he was just watching Cops. (I don't know how watching a tense show would make you sweaty....) Dale also knows something is up because when he goes to inspect his drum set, he finds one of the drum sticks has a chip in it. He questions Brennan about it and tells him he knows he's lying about the reason for being sweaty because Cops doesn't come on until four. This results in Brennan running upstairs and threatening to put his junk on Dale's drum set and proceeds to do just that (luckily with prosthetic genitals, because eww). That results in them getting into a huge altercation and knocking each other into the drum set and smashing into the walls and rolling down the stairs and into the front yard where the fight just escalates. Nancy is trying to stop them by spraying them with a hose and all the neighbors are watching these two grown-ass men just going at it. It finally ends when they each hit each other with a baseball bat/mallet at the same time. In the next scene, we see them sitting on the couch together watching TV while they hold ice packs to their heads. It's the first time we actually see them not trying to kill each other or saying mean things to each other. I loved when Robert turns off the TV and Dale whines, "Dad, what are you doing? It's Shark Week!" Yeah, don't mess with Shark Week!

Robert announces that he and Nancy have set some new rules: they will fix the dry wall (the one they punctured when they were fighting) immediately, they have one month to find jobs or they're out of the house, and no TV for a week. I love the enraged "WHAT?!" from the two of them when they hear the last rule.

You know how when you hear a certain song, it makes you think of a movie it was featured in? I'm not talking about specific songs that were written as the movie's theme songs, but just popular songs that when you hear them, you automatically think of a movie they were used in because they are prominently feature in them. For instance, whenever I hear "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks, I always think of School of Rock. And in this case, whenever I hear "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns 'n Roses, I think of this movie. We are first introduced to Derek when he, his wife, Alice (Kathryn Hahn), and two children are singing that song in the car on their way to visit his mom and new stepdad. Adam Scott played the nicest guy ever on Parks and Rec and he's such a douche bag here that's it so funny. He gets angry when his wife can't hit a note and berates her, telling her he doesn't spend $1200 a week on voice lessons for the family for nothing.

We get some backstory on why Brennan doesn't like Derek: when Brennan was 17 and Derek was 14, they were both in their school's talent show. Brennan sang a song dressed as a pirate. Derek started taunting him and humiliated him, making fun of him for wearing make-up, and even the audience joined in. The moment was so traumatizing for Brennan, that even though he loved to sing, it drudged up bad memories and he was never able to sing in public again. We see the flashback and of course Will Ferrell and Adam Scott are playing their younger versions. Look, I know Adam Scott looks super young for his age, but it might be a stretch for him to play a fourteen-year-old! In the end, Derek won the talent show by lip synching "Ice Ice Baby", probably the douchiest song ever.

This is Derek's first time meeting Robert and Dale. He wasn't able to come to the wedding because he was busy fishing with Mark Cuban, Chris Daughtry, Jeff Probst, and Bobby Flay. (Interesting group). This isn't the only time Derek will name drop: he will also mention hanging out with Chad Michael Murray and Seal (on separate occasions) in different scenes. Robert takes an instant liking to Derek and gets mad at Dale for interrupting the story when he asks Derek a question about the fishing trip. This throws off Derek's train of thought and he says, "Don't be mad at Dale for ruining the story. And possibly the evening."

Brennan has been hanging out in the tree house during dinner to avoid Derek and Dale joins him, telling him he was right about his brother. Derek pops up a few minutes later to taunt both of them. When Dale asks him what his problem is, he replies that he doesn't have a problem, that he made over 550K last year as the VP of "the biggest executive-helicopter-leasing company on the Western Seaboard" and asks them how much they made. He also adds salt to the wound by telling them that he hasn't had a carb since 2004 and lifts up his shirt to show off his abs. This was obviously a male model who was wearing the same clothes because when they show a close up of his abs, you just see the person from the neck down. As he points to his abs, he tells them, "Every day I lather this up with Keihl's in the shower." Haha, I'm sure Keihl's love the promotion! Or maybe not since a totally douchey character was promoting them! He tells Brennan that he'll offer him a job at his company as a Christmas present for their mom, but Brennan refuses.

He taunts them some more, telling them they both look like they want to punch him in the face. When he straight up tells Dale, "punch me in the f**king face", Dale does just that and knocks him out of tree. This is a major turn on to Alice who kisses Dale and tells him that she will pleasure herself to the image of him hitting Derek. They will have a couple of dalliances, but this storyline won't really go anywhere. Lucky for Dale, Derek never finds out that his wife cheated on him with Dale (though I'm willing to bet that Derek has cheated on Alice many times!)

The shared hatred of Derek has also bonded the two step brothers and Brennan shows Dale something only three other people have ever seen: a samurai sword signed by Randy Jackson. When Dale asks him why it's signed by Randy Jackson, Brennan tells him he bumped into the Idol judge and all he had on him was this sword and "you're not gonna not get Randy Jackson's autograph." I have so many questions: where did Brennan bump into Randy Jackson? Most importantly, WHY was he carrying around a samurai sword? I loved Dale's response: "I would've done the exact same thing." This prompts Dale to show Brennan his night-vision goggles and this scene probably has one of my favorite lines when Brennan says, "Can you imagine if we had the when we were twelve?" and Dale replies, "Even better. We got them when we're forty." I mean, I suppose at any age, night-vision goggles are pretty cool.

The two of them bond even further when they play a game where a question is asked and on the count of three, they both answer at the sane time. They both answer "velociraptor" for their favorite dinosaur (though, let's be honest, isn't that everyone's favorite dinosaur, especially those who grew up with Jurassic Park?); they both agree that Good Housekeeping is their favorite non-pornographic magazine to pleasure themselves to (God, I hope Nancy reads them before her sons get a hold of them, eww!); and if they were girls, the one guy they would sleep with would be John Stamos. Look, I can't blame them. I recently saw him on the first season of You on Netflix (and he pops up for a minute in the second season) and dude still looks really good for being in his mid-50s.

As Brennan exclaims, "Did we just become best friends?" and Dale replies with an enthusiastic, "Yep!", we get a montage of them getting along set to "You Make My Dreams Come True" as they do karate in the garage, watch a violent movie, pee at the same time (yeah, that one was weird), and rearrange their room.

They decide to make their beds into bunk beds so they have more floor space. When they ask their parents if they can do that, Robert tells them they don't need permission because they are adults. He is a little annoyed because he has arranged interviews for both of them the next morning and it is late and thinks they should be getting rest instead of moving their beds. From their bedroom, Robert and Nancy hear hammers and a power drill. Robert yells at them not to use a power drill and Dale yells back that it's his tooth brush. At their finished work, Dale proclaims, "Look at that! That looks like something you'd buy from a store!" (It doesn't). You already know what's coming next: Brennan lays down on the bottom bunk and Dale jumps up on the top. He's casually chatting as he climbs up to the top bunk and you're not really paying attention to what he's saying because you're just waiting for the inevitable; which of course, is for the top bunk to collapse on the lower bunk (and poor Brennan!) Dale runs to his parents' room, crying, "It's so bad! There's blood everywhere!" This freaks out the parents, but Brennan only has a cut on his arm.

The next morning, Robert tells the two of them that they can pick out anything from his closet so they look sharp for their job interviews. It's too bad both he and Nancy had to leave before they saw what their sons chose to wear because they would have not approved. They both wear tuxedos as they interview as a team for three different jobs, including one that requires them to clean bathrooms. Actually, I'm surprised that Robert owns two tuxedos! During one interview, done by a woman named Pam, Brennan can't get her name right and keeps calling her "Pan" no matter how many times she keeps correcting him. Adam McKay plays one of the interviewers and Brennan and Dale turn the tables on him telling him that they are going to interview him and engage in a game of F**k, Marry, Kill where his three options are Oprah, Barbara Walters, and his wife. Unfortunately, we never hear his answers! Seth Rogen has a cameo as the third interviewer who runs a sporting goods store and is set to hire them because they seem cool enough, but after Dale lets one rip (in a smalll room, mind you) he quickly revokes the job offer. Later, he will tell his dad, who heard about what happened, that he thought it would be silent. Um, he does still realize it would still stink, right? God, I love how stupidly funny this movie is.

With his drum skills and Brennan's claim of people who have heard him sing calling him "the songbird of his generation", Dale thinks they should start "an international entertainment company" which they'll call Prestige Worldwide. Brennan thinks this is a great idea and they both agree that their parents met just so this very idea could form.

Meanwhile, Robert's dream is to sail around the world on his boat, The Gilded Lady, with Nancy. He originally thought he would have to wait two years before he had the funds to do so, but after talking to Derek, who happens to have a realtor license and told him he could sell his house for thirty per cent above market, he decides that he would rather sail around the world sooner than later. When they tell Brennan and Dale their plan to sell the house, their sons ask what about them and Nancy replies "We thought you should take responsibility for your own lives." Their parents have been generous enough to put enough money in their accounts for a security deposit on an apartment and adds that they are both going to see therapists. I laughed when Robert tells them, "You're adults. It's time you start acting like adults!" and Brennan looks at Nancy and whines "Mo-om!" like a petulant five-year-old. Then I laughed even harder when Robert tells them they're doing this because they love them and Dale replies, "Dad, I'm doing this because I love you: f**k you."  Then I almost died laughing when Brennan tells Dale that when his mom is "of age", he's putting her in a home.

Because of their new circumstances, they know they need to get Prestige Worldwide started and think they should have an investor presentation like they do The Apprentice. (Come to think of it, Prestige Worldwide does sound like a name a team on that show would come up with). Dale tells Brennan he needs to hear him sing to make sure he's as good as he says he is and when Brennan sings, "Something to Talk About", Dale gets this awed look on his face and says that he has the voice of an angel and that it's a combination of Fergie and Jesus. They decide to make a music video using the house (even though the music video they will eventually show doesn't even feature the house) and will go to any length to make sure Derek doesn't sell the house which includes being racist neighbors (they dress up as a Nazi and Klan member) and Brennan made up to look like a dead body as Dale cradles his corpse and cries. (I'm surprised Brennan didn't make Dale up with the stab wounds). There's a call back to Derek's winning song from the talent show as his realtor sign reads, "D-Man Realty" with the tagline, "My homes are nice, nice baby."

I love the scene when Dale is talking to his therapist for the first time and telling him he works as a janitor at a college and sometimes he'll see an equation on the blackboard that he'll solve and that his best friend is Ben Affleck. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? When his therapists questions him, Dale denies it's the plot to Good Will Hunting. Meanwhile, Brennan has strong feeling of love for his attractive female therapist who tells him she does not share the same feeling as him.

When Derek's friends and family gather at a restaurant to celebrate his birthday, Dale and Brennan announce they have "a special surprise" for everyone, telling them they have a "once in a lifetime business opportunity" and are asking for investors for their new company. They show them the world premier of their first music video called "Boats and Hos" which has the two of them rapping extremely vulgar lyrics on Robert's boat as a couple of bikini-clad women are gyrating in the background. Probably the least crass line is the chorus, "I gotta have me some boats and hos." I love that Alice is moving her head to the beat of the music and getting into it. Robert questions who is steering the boat since everyone on board is either rapping or dancing. A horrified look crosses his face when the boat is shown crashing into a rock wall and just folding up into itself. (I'm surprised that Dale and Brennan didn't edit that part out of the video! Yes, Robert would have eventually found out about the boat, but maybe they could have told him later.) On the way home, Brennan asks, "So the big question is, aside from the damage to the boat, which we will fix, what'd you guys think of the presentation?" When he started with "the big question", I thought he was going to ask them if they wanted to invest, which I thought would have been funnier. Robert gets very angry when Nancy tells them that while she doesn't condone what they did to Robert's boat, she does think they show a lot of enthusiasm and inventiveness. They get into a big fight, then Brennan starts screaming at Robert and gets spanked by him.

Earlier in the movie, it was established that both Dale and Brennan sleep walk (seriously, what are the odds of that?) as we see a scene of them walking into the kitchen and making a huge mess as they throw food and dishes everywhere. Dale even put couch pillows in the oven (glad he didn't turn it on!) Things are still tense during the holidays and the brothers sleep walk again on Christmas Eve. They keep bringing presents from downstairs up their parents' room and throwing them onto the bed and the floor, breaking them, and they even bring up the Christmas tree. Robert decides he's just going to wake them up, despite Nancy's warning that you never, ever wake up a sleep walker. He quickly learns his lesson because as soon as he attempts to wake them, they start punching him and throw him down the stairs. I know this sounds horribly violent, but it is also so funny. 

The next evening, at Christmas dinner, Nancy and Robert announce to the family that they are getting a divorce. Nancy reiterates that it's not Brennan and Dale's fault when the brothers begin to question if it is and that they don't want them to blame themselves. Robert, however, tells them, "It is directly your fault. You destroyed my boat, you beat me up in your sleep, and worst of all, you made Nancy and I resent each other. It is absolutely 150 percent your fault!"

Brennan and Dale get into fight over their parents' divorce and blame the other for it. They stop talking to each other and decide it's time to grow up. Brennan asks for a job from Derek and Dale gets a job as a caterer at a temp agency. Brennan wants to step up his game and asks his brother if he can run the Catalina Wine Mixer which is "the biggest helicopter-leasing event in the Western hemisphere since 1997". It's the Catalina f**king Wine Mixer! He hires Dale as the caterer and both Nancy and Robert are also invited.

The band hired to play is called Uptown Girl and they only cover 1980s Billy Joel songs. When someone suggests they play "Piano Man", the lead singer tells him they only play '80s Billy Joel songs and proceeds to get into a yelling match and storm off the stage when people don't understand why they won't play other songs from his discography. According to Derek, this has ruined the event and he fires Brennan on the spot.

Robert gathers Brennan and Dale and encourages them to go up on stage and perform. He tells them a ludicrous story of how he always wanted to be a T-rex when he was a boy and he would make his arms short and roam the neighborhood, growing and roaring, as he chased cats. His dad told him, "You're 17, stop being a dinosaur and get a f**king job." So he became a doctor, always thinking he could go back to his dream later, but he never did and he doesn't want this opportunity to pass by for Dale and Brennan. I love how they're like, "You're a human, how could you be a dinosaur?" Dale agrees with his father, saying, "I'm f**king miserable! I had to get up at ten this morning!" Oh my God, shut up, Dale! I consider it a fabulous day when I can sleep in until ten.

The Catalina Wine Mixer is saved as Dale plays the drums while Brennan performs an opera song which enchants everybody: Nancy and Robert get back together, Brennan's therapist (who's there for some reason) starts to return feelings for Brennan, and even Derek is so moved that he has a better relationship with his brother.

Six months later we find out that Dale and Brennan have a booming karaoke business called Karaoke 'n' Roll where the motto is, "If you can't sing, just sit down."

I admit I haven't seen all of the films Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have done together and it's been a long time since I've seen Talladega Nights, which might be the only other true contender, but I would say Step Brothers is my favorite movie they've done together.