Love Stories

Valentine's Day

Director: Garry Marshall

Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Shirley McClaine, and a million other people

Released: February 10, 2010

When I start watching a movie, the first thing I usually do is check to see how long it is and this one is a little over two hours. At first, I was surprised (and a little annoyed, ha!) because why would some romcom be over two hours long, but then I remembered that half of Hollywood is in this movie and there are a billion little storylines, so that quickly explained that. 

I feel like Garry Marshall watched Love, Actually (which would have come out 7 years prior) and wanted to do that except have it set in L.A on Valentine's Day. There's even a plot line that's sorta similar to one in Love, Actually, but I'll explain more when I get there. 

It's clear Garry picked up the phone to call many of his favorite people to work with: Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, Anne Hathaway from The Princess Diaries, Hector Elizondo from pretty much everything he's directed, and Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane from the one episode of Grey's Anatomy he directed. Just kidding. He never directed an episode of Grey's Anatomy, but I did have to double check to see if he did or not since two actors from that show are in this movie!  

As you can imagine, some of the storylines collide with each other. There are at least two, maybe three (hell, perhaps even four) storylines that could have easily been cut and it wouldn't have affected the movie at all, but I'll tell you about those later. 

It's Valentine's Day morning and Reed (Ashton Kutcher) has just proposed to his girlfriend, Morley (Jessica Alba) and she says yes. (By the way, I had to look up pretty much everyone's characters name because I only remembered a couple of their names in the movie!) Reed sells flowers and obviously this is a big day for his business and he's got his friend and co-worker, Alphonso (George Lopez) to help him on this big day. 

Reed is friends with Julia (Jennifer Garner) and she has recently started dating a cardiothoracic surgeon named Dr. Derek Sheperd, oops, I mean Dr. Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey - actually, Dr. Shepard was a neurosurgeon, wasn't he?). Haha, I wonder if they call him Dr. McDreamy at his hospital? Julia is so in love with him and basically has hearts for eyes. Unfortunately, he can't spend the day with her because he has to go to San Francisco for something work related. Later, we'll see him call Julia from his car, telling her he's just gotten to the airport, but in actuality, he's pulling into the driveway of a nice house. My first thought was, OMG! He's married! and not five seconds later we see him take a ring out of his pocket and slide it onto his finger. What a jerk! 

Julia goes to see Reed and she's a little surprised that Morley said yes to his proposal, but is happy for him. When she tells him her new flame will be in San Francisco for the day (so she thinks!), he suggests that she go up there and surprise him. Boy, he's going to regret suggesting that when Dr. Copeland will stop by his flower shop in a few hours to buy two arrangement for his two ladies. Before he gives his credit card to Reed, he asks if he can be discreet about this. He agrees, but then when he recognizes his name on the card, he clarifies that Julia Fitzpatrick is his girlfriend and Pamela Copeland is his wife since she has the same last name as him. 

He's having a huge dilemma of whether he should tell Julia or not that her boyfriend is married. He asks Alphonso what he would do and Alphonso asks him what HE would do if the roles were reversed. Reed knows he needs to tell Julia and he tries to when he delivers the flowers from Harrison to her, but isn't able to. 

Unfortunately, Reed will get hit with his own dose of bad news when he comes home to find Morley packing a suitcase and tells him she is leaving him and can't marry him. I saw this coming a mile away because in an earlier scene he asks why she's not wearing her ring and she tells him she doesn't want people asking a bunch of questions since it's Valentine's Day and that they should keep their engagement secret for now. At the last minute, and I mean at the very last minute, he runs to the airport where Julia is waiting to board a plane. He tells her that Harrison is married, but she thinks this means he used to be married and is still being stubborn. 

We see that Julia did not get on the plane, but instead went to the hospital where Dr. Copeland works and asks a nurse if he's working tonight and she says no. She then asks if he's married and the woman confirms he is and he and his wife just celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. An older nurse comes over to Julia and whispers to her what restaurant he'll be at tonight and what time. It just so happens that one of Julia's students' (she's an elementary school teacher) dad is a maitre'd at that restaurant (or maybe he owns the place, hell, I don't know), so she is able to pretend to be a waitress for Harrison and his wife. At first, he's not paying attention as he's looking at the menu and talking to his wife as Julia pours them water, but when she announces she'll be their waitress, he chokes on his water. She tells them one of their specials is called "the lying, stinking pig." The wife is not getting the clue and is amused by this special and asks how it's made and Julia goes into gruesome detail (and some fast thinking for being put on the spot; guess she got the training when she was a spy in the CIA, haha) about what the chef does to its scrotum and heart. The wife says she'll go with the salmon, but Harrison stutters that he's not hungry. Surely, the wife had some suspicion. Oh, well, I suppose if she did, she decided to wait until they got home before she went off on him. This scene reminded me of the one in Adventures in Baby-Sitting when Elisabeth Shue sees Bradley Whitford with some girl in a restaurant when he told her he couldn't go out because his sister was sick and when she goes in to confront him she overhears him say to the girl, "Girls like you only come around once in a lifetime" which is a line he told Chris (Elisabeth's character) and she's like, "Or twice in the same night." 

Julia thanks her student's dad and picks up some carry out she's taking to a party and tells him to charge it to her "friend over there." He says he figured and tells her he also added some extra lobster tails and cheesecake, heh.

So now Reed's (one day) fiancee has left him and Julia's boyfriend is married. Guess who gets together? They find out they were meant for each other all along! How sweet! Okay, so that wraps up their storylines (for the most part), who's next? 

Like I said, Julia is an elementary school teacher (fourth or fifth grade) and one of her students is a boy named Edison. His grandparents are Edgar (Hector Elizondo) and Estelle (Shirley McClain). This is the storyline that (sort of) reminded me of Love, Actually when Liam Neeson's son tells him he's in love with a girl in his class. Edison tells his grandfather he wants to send flowers to his Valentine and we see him trying to order a bouquet of roses at Reed's shop even though he doesn't have enough money. I think we're supposed to think he has a crush on this girl in his class, Rani, an Indian girl who's also a good friend of his and they both play soccer together. Another one of their teammates calls her his girlfriend to Edison's face, but he denies it. But when Julia (Ms. Fitzpatrick to her students) is telling her students the history of Valentine's Day, he's the only one paying attention so I knew that he had a crush on his teacher. For some reason, his flowers aren't delivered to the school (probably because he didn't have enough money!), so he has to make it his mission to make sure his Valentine gets her flowers THAT day. He finds out from Rani that she has to work at her family's restaurant that night (and keep in mind this girl is ten) because they're hosting two parties: a wedding reception and an "I Hate Valentine's Day" party that Ms. Fitzpatrick will be attending because her friend Kara is hosting. Okay, let's put a pin in this story (there's not too much left to tell, but I need to introduce some other characters before I wrap it up. This movie's kind of a pain to try to summarize!) 

In a movie about love and Valentine's Day, we at least need one anti-Valentine's Day person and that is Kara (Jessica Biel) who hosts an annual "I Hate Valentine's Day" party. She is upset because nobody has RSVPed to her party, but don't worry, she ends up having a nice gathering. Julia is the first to arrive. At first she wasn't going to attend because she had planned to be in San Francisco surprising her boyfriend, but we all know how that turned out! There's a heart-shaped piñata and Julia takes a bat and just beats the crap out of it. Before she smashes the piñata, she twirls the bat around in her hand and it's very Sydney Bristow.

Kara is a publicist for an "aging" (he's 35) football player named Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) who's thinking about retiring because he wants more out of life. He wants to call a press conference and everyone thinks he's going to announce his retirement. His agent is played by Queen Latifah and she has one amusing moment where she's getting a massage and when it turns out that Sean's big announcement is that he's gay (but he's still going to continue to play), she looks up and says, "I knew it!" 

But let's back up (again) and introduce another character. Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) is a sports journalist, but his producer, Susan (Kathy Bates), wants him to do a lifestyle piece (because it's a slow sports day, but this was before Sean Jackson announced he was holding a press conference) and ask people on the street "what does Valentine's Day mean to you?" Kelvin isn't thrilled about this because he wants to be taken seriously as a sports journalist and he's not a fan of Valentine's Day. (Guess who he ends up with?) I did laugh at his reply about Valentine's Day not even being a real holiday because they don't get the day off. I totally agree with him. If you don't get time and a half for woking on a holiday it's not a real holiday! When he hears that Sean Jackson (I have no idea why I keep calling him by his first and last name, maybe because that's how they referred to him in the movie) is announcing a press conference, he goes to Kara's office to ask is he can ask Sean one camera on question. Kara is in her office, stuffing chocolate in her mouth, a little unhinged, and asks him if she's the only person who's alone on Valentine's Day and tells him how her best friend is candy and the only relationship she has is with her Blackberry. (Haha, this movie is so dated.) Now I don't know if this is the first time these two have met, but it's super cringe and she breaks down and he's trying to comfort her. Anyway, he is able to get his question for Sean Jackson and he ends up coming to Kara's party (because he hates Valentine's Day too!). They share a kiss at the end of the movie and I guess they end up together. 

We get a storyline set on an airplane where U.S. army captain Kate (Julia Roberts) is sitting next to a well-dressed man named Holden (Bradley Cooper). They strike up a conversation and we learn that Kate is on a one-day leave. Holden tells her he thinks it's a romantic gesture what she's doing since she's taking a fourteen hour flight just to be home for one day, then turn around the next day and take another fourteen hour flight back and mentions the guy she's going to see is a lucky man. Okay, right away I knew she wasn't going home to see a husband or a boyfriend or any kind of romantic partner. I knew that Edison was her son and he was who she was going home to see. I knew this because when Edison is playing soccer we see him looking at the moms cheering on their kids and he looks really sad. I thought it was weird that she never corrected him and told him she had a son and was going home to see him. I guess it's because they wanted it to be a surprise for the audience. Well, you're not fooling me, Garry Marshall! It is a sweet moment when she comes home and hugs her son and I may or may not have had something in my eyes during that scene. We also find out that Holden is in a relationship with Sean Jackson. So I guess they were in a relationship, but it wasn't public since Sean wasn't officially out? 

Okay, let's go back to Edison for a second. For some reason, he has a baby-sitter even though he has two able-bodied grandparents who are able to take care of. Grace (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior who watches him after school. I would understand if the grandparents weren't home to watch him, but there's a scene of her at their house and she's talking to them. If the grandparents are home, why do they need a baby-sitter? Okay, this scene will come into play later so I get why it's there. 

Let's talk about Grace's (very cringey) storyline. That morning, her teacher asks her if she can help with a "test-prep group for the class" after school, but Grace tells her she has to baby-sit. When she asks if she can do it during lunch, she tells her she can't because she plans to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time and they're going to her house during lunch break because her parents will be at work. I for sure thought she was trying to get out of helping the teacher and just said that so the teacher would be uncomfortable (which she was!) and leave it alone, but no, Grace was being serious. She even offers to help her the next day with the study group. 

During lunch break, Grace's boyfriend, Alex (Carter Jenkins, the only person in the main cast I wasn't familiar with), gets to her house first (he knows where the key is hidden; under a doormat, with an obvious hiding place like that, they're probably going to get burglarized) and heads up to her room and covers her bed in rose petals and lights a bunch of candles. It's the most cliche thing ever. Also, isn't lunch break usually only half an hour? And they have to drive home, then back to school? This all just seems very rushed and not very special or romantic. Are they just doing this today because it's Valentine's Day? I guess. Alex is an inspiring musician and has brought his guitar and starts playing it and singing a cheesy song about her. He is completely naked (ready to go, I guess!) and the guitar is strategically placed around him. In a very predictable move, we see the front door open and in walks Grace's mom! I guess she had to come home form work to get something. She can hear the music upstairs and thinks Grace is home, so she opens the door to get quite the surprise. Alex also gets quite the surprise too and falls onto Grace's bed. We get a very awkward scene where he tells his girlfriend's mom the reason he is naked because he's rehearsing for "an experimental show". (Okay, but why is he "practicing" in Grace's room?) He stands up and steps on a thorn of a rose, then backs up and crashes into one of Grace's shelves, then he bumps heads with Grace's mom. You would think the mom would tell him to get dressed, close the door, then they could discuss what he was doing. Alex wraps his jacket around his wait and grabs his guitar case and runs out of the house completely naked, but he's covered up. He runs down the block and runs into Grace who is on her way home. She stops and lets him in the car and he tells her what just happened. Boy, she must have been mortified that her mom saw her boyfriend naked in her bedroom! 

So they decide to wait to have sex because reasons I don't even remember. Grace chats with Edgar and Estelle and asks them who's only been with one person and they tell her they are those people. Except lies! Because Estelle confesses to Edgar that she had an affair with his business partner many years ago. Damn, that's cold, Estelle! When he asks why she's telling him this now, she replies she wanted to tell him the truth and he tells her, "The truth makes everything else seem like a lie."

There are a couple storylines that could have been deleted from the movie. One of them is the relationship between Liz (Anne Hathaway) and Jason (Topher Grace - thank goodness I have the Wikipedia cast list up because I would not have remembered their character's names!). They recently started dating and go on a dinner date. They go to this super crowded restaurant where the tables are literally right next to each other and they're sitting shoulder to shoulder with the other patrons and are across from each other and have to talk loudly to be heard. The couple next to them are leaning across the table and making out and the other couple next to them is fighting. It doesn't seem very fun or intimate. One of the moments of dialogue I genuinely laughed at is when the waiter comes over and asks them, "Would you like the four-course Sweetheart's Menu or the eight-course Eternal Love?" and Jason replies, "Whoa slow down. Is there a one-course 'only been dating
for two weeks but it looks promising option?'" Yeah, that's pretty awkward, but I think his reply was pretty good. 

During their scenes together or when Liz is at work, she has to take calls because she makes extra money on the side as a phone sex operator. It's all very PG-13 dirty talk and she talks in accents, usually Russian or Southern. She seems to have the same two clients. During the dinner date, she has to excuse herself to take one of these calls and goes outside. Jason (he doesn't know what she does on the side) goes to find her and overhears her "talking dirty" (I say it in quotes because it's pretty tame) in a Southern accent to someone who he believes is her boyfriend. This guy is really dumb...any idiot would realize what she's doing. She admits she's a phone sex operator and when he asks why she didn't tell him she says it's because she's broke and has a $100,000 student loan and no insurance. So I guess because of shame? He's such a jerk and tells her "I'm out." But why? Because she's the a phone sex operator? Because she's broke? For some reason, after he tells her that, she asks if he's going to call her, but I guess this is so he can be snarky and reply, "I'd like to say yes, but I don't know if I can afford it." He does immediately apologize for saying that, but says this is all too much for him.

So I would say this is a storyline that could be deleted, but it does merge with the Edgar and Estelle storyline. Both couples are supposed to go to a movie night in the cemetery, but the guys end up going alone and they start chatting about their forlorn love lives. Edgar and Estelle go every year on Valentine's and this is the first time he's been there without Estelle. The movie they're showing is a 1958 movie Shirely McClaine was in called Hot Spell, so I guess Estelle is/was an actress, but I don't know if this is supposed to be Hot Spell or another movie because Shirley McClaine isn't playing herself. Anyway, Estelle comes to the screening and she and Edgar make up and kiss in front of a huge crowd of people and everyone claps. Also, Jason realizes he was being a jerk to Liz and they make up and get together. 

I would also say you could delete the Emma Robert and her boyfriend storyline, but it also connects to Edgar and Estelle. One storyline you could definitely delete and it wouldn't affect the movie is the Taylor Swift and Taylor Launter one. They play a dating high school couple and they're friends with Grace and Alex, but that's really only the connection they have with other characters in the movie. The Taylor Swift song "Today Was a Fairytale" is featured during the movie and at the end credits. I thought she specifically wrote it for the movie, but looking at Wikipedia (which I already had up!) she had already written it and offered it to be used in the movie. Taylor Swift has many, many amazing songs and this....is not one of them. It's very bland and generic, much like this movie! 

The absolute best part of this film is the very, very end when they're showing the bloopers and the last blooper we see is Julia Roberts being driven home in a car and they go past Rodeo Drive and the driver asks her if she's ever been there and she replies she has and it was a "Big mistake, huge!" 

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.