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. 

Seeing Double

The Parent Trap (1961)

Director: David Swift

Cast: Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Joanna Barnes

Released: June 21, 1961

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound (lost to West Side Story)

Best Film Editing (lost to West Side Story)

The Parent Trap (1998)

Director: Nancy Meyers

Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix

Released: July 29, 1998

I am doing a double movie review feature which is perfect because these movies feature twins! Ah, yes, The Parent Trap. Everyone knows this movie. It's a classic. If you really think about it, it's a bit of a f***ed up movie. A couple meets, falls in loves, gets married, has twin girls, then gets divorced soon after. That's actually all normal, but it's the fact that each parent takes a twin and live on opposite sides of the country (or, in the remake's case, different continents) and neither girl has no idea that the other one even exists! Also, I'm pretty sure that's not how custody works. I don't think the parents can just choose which child they want to keep as their own! 

The '98 movie follows the original pretty closely with only a few updated changes. So much so that both movies are pretty much the same length. Hayley Mills plays Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers and Lindsay Lohan plays Annie James and Hallie Parker. Now I know that Hayley Mills was a popular child/teen actress of the early '60s, but to me, she'll always be Miss Bliss from Saved By the Bell! This was Lindsay Lohan's first movie and before she became a tabloid favorite, she was a pretty cute little eleven year old and it's impressive that her first movie was playing two characters who both have very different personalities and mannerisms. They could have easily cast the Olsen twins (who are the same age as Lohan), but I like that the movie cast only one actress as the original did. I felt like it would be cheating if they had cast real twins! I had always just assumed they named one of the Lohan twins "Hallie" as a homage to Hayley Mills (Hayley, Hallie, they sound close enough), but reading through the IMDb trivia section, I found out that the Lohan twins were named after the director's daughters.
  

Besides the names, the ages are also different. The Mills twins are thirteen and the Lohan twins are eleven. Both movies start with the girls going to the same summer camp. (Seriously, what are the odds of that; especially when they don't even live in the same town and the camp isn't even in the same area where they live?) I guess when they were making movies in the '60s, they didn't know how to build suspense because the very first moment Susan and Sharon are in the same room, they see each other. This happens the first night at camp when they're in line for dinner at the mess hall and both reach for something and see each other and give each other a look of surprise. At least in the remake, they milk it a bit before the twins discover each other. Like the original, there's a scene where they're both reaching for something while in line for dinner, but they don't see each other because the camp counselor is between them. They finally see each other for the first time after they've had a fencing duel and take off their masks and also gasp in surprise at their similarities. For some reason, both sets of twins take an immediate disliking to each other (with one twin insulting the other's looks...um, hello, you look exactly the same!) and a prank war ensues. This results with the girls being sent to the Isolation Cabin. This is when they start to learn peculiar things about each other. One girl grew up with her father and never knew her mother (Susan and Hallie) and the other girl grew up with her mother and never knew her father (Sharon and Annie). They also find out they have the same birthday and will be turning the same age! And they look exactly alike! What are the odds of that?

The twin who grew up with the mother realizes that something is up and has a realization that they just may be related. (Duh, no kidding!) In the original, Susan tells Sharon she's seen a photo of her mom and Sharon shows her a huge framed photo of her mom (seriously, who would bring something like that to a camp?) to which Susan asks what she's doing with a picture of HER mother and Sharon says that it's HER mother. In the remake, both girls have a torn photo, ripped down the middle of the parent they didn't grow up with. They reveal the photos and realize it makes a whole and the other girl recognizes the parent they did grow up with. "That's my mum!" "That's my dad!"

It's the idea of the twin who grew up with her father for them to switch places when they leave camp, so that way, their parents (who have never gotten remarried to other people), will have to unswitch them and will therefore meet and fall in love again. To do this, they cut the the hair of the twin with the longer locks and in the remake, they pierce the ears of the twin who doesn't have pierced ears. They also tell each other about their lives at home and the people in their everyday lives, like Sharon's/Annie's grandfather and butler and Susan's maid/Hallie's nanny.

In both movies, the twin of the father is from Carmel, California, but in the original, the twin of the mother lives in Boston while in the remake, they make her from London. Actually, while watching the original, I was a little surprised when I found out she was from Boston because she sounded more British than Bostonian; she certainly didn't sound like the people from movies and TV who are from Boston! Then I realized the "other" twin also sounded a little British and realized Hayley Mills just didn't quite get rid of her British accent as she's British in real life.

So Susan travels to Boston as "Sharon" where she meets her mother, Maggie McKendrick (Maureen O'Hara) and Hallie travels to London as "Annie" where she meets her mother, Elizabeth James (Natasha Richardson). I love that the twins are blonde and have a redheaded mother in the original and in the remake the twins are redheads and have a blonde mother. While riding in the car to her mother's home, Hallie is looking out the window and gawking at all the famous London sites. Girl, compose yourself! Remember, you're a native! The mothers in both movies are very beautiful, proper, and refined and the twins who finally get to meet her are just so enamored with her. Elizabeth is a famous wedding gown designer and takes her daughter to a photo shoot. I don't think they ever tell us what Maggie does.

Sharon travels to California as "Susan" where she meets her dad, Mitch Evers (Brian Keith) and

Annie travels to California as "Hallie" where she meets her dad, Nick Parker (Dennis Quaid). It was a little creepy in the original because when Susan was describing her dad to Sharon, she used words like "dreamy" and "sensational". Okay, let's calm down, it sounds like you have a crush on your dad! (Eww!) Luckily, they don't go that route in the remake. (I should hope not!) The fathers in both movies are rich, handsome, rugged-outdoors men and the twins who finally get to meet him are just so enamored with him. But not to the point of creepiness. The only girl who has a crush on her father in these movies is Susan! Like the mothers in both movies, both of the fathers live in large, gorgeous houses, so it's not like neither sets of twins were destitute. Both sets were living pretty great lives, but they just want to make their lives even better! Who can blame them? In both movies, Sharon and Annie, posing as the other twin, are confronted by Susan's and Hallie's confused dog who barks at them.

Unfortunately there is a little hiccup in Operation: Get Parents Back Together when Sharon/Annie discovers their father has a girlfriend - a MUCH younger girlfriend, who he plans to marry. Mitch is planning to marry Vicky (Joanna Barnes) and Nick is planning to marry Meredith (Elaine Hendrix). Joanna Barnes plays the mother of Meredith in the remake, so that's pretty cool. There's a funny moment in the remake where Nick is about to tell "Hallie" he's going to marry Meredith, but Annie interrupts him and says how she's so excited to have a big sister since he's obviously going to adopt her. Who would adopt a twenty-six year old? It's so ridiculous, but funny.

Sharon and Annie call their sisters to reveal the bad news. Susan gets a telegram from Western Union delivered from Sharon that says "Alexander Graham 3 AM important" and her mother and grandparents can't crack the code. Please. It's so obvious that she's suppose to call her "friend" (who she says it's from) at three in the morning.

Both sets of twins get caught before they reveal who they really are. Susan and Hallie get caught by Sharon's and Annie's grandfather (I guess technically, he is their grandfather too) after they've gotten off the phone with the other twin. He makes her tell the truth to his daughter. Susan is a total brat when she reveals who she really is to her mother and grandmother because she's whining how Sharon is back in California "riding my horse and having a keen time while I'm stuck here with these lousy music lessons and I hate them." Sharon is caught by the Evers's maid, Verbena, and Annie is discovered by Hallie's nanny, Chessy, when both women become suspicious of the dog acting different towards the girls and their change of appetites.

By now the only person who doesn't know they've switched places is their father. Susan/Hallie and their mothers fly to California to switch places and hopefully stop their dad's marriage to a floozy and rekindle a romance between their parents. In both movies they do the old joke where the dad sees one twin, then, a minute later, sees the other twin and he's confused as to how she just popped up again so soon and she's wearing different clothes. There's a totally cringe-worthy moment in the original where Maggie takes a shower at the house while Mitch is out on his horse and when he comes back, there's a bra hanging on the shower door and he thinks it belongs to his thirteen-year-old daughter (which it obviously doesn't). Again, luckily, they take this out of the remake. When Mitch/Nick sees their ex-wife, they are shocked. So shocked, in fact, they fall into a lake/pool. In the original, when Mitch and Maggie are reunited, they start fighting and SCREAMING at each other. Now I can see why they got divorced! They're a lot more civil to each other in the remake. This is when the twins show up and explain to their father they've switched places this whole time. Both sets of twins guilt trip their parents into saying how they've grown up this whole time without a mother/father and beg their father not to marry Vicky/Meredith.

The twins set up a date for their parents that matches the very first date they ever had. This is when the Mills twins sing "Let's Get Together". The Lohan twins don't serenade their parents, but there is a scene earlier in the movie when one of those twins is humming it. However, the romantic dates don't quite work because the mother plans to fly back home with her daughter (the right twin this time). The twins play a trick on their parents by dressing exactly the same and not revealing who is who, therefore confusing their parents. They tell them they both want to go on the camping trip their dad has planned with the whole family. After they return, they will tell them who is who. Plans change and Vicky/Meredith end up going on the camping trip instead of Maggie/Elizabeth. This gives Susan and Sharon and Hallie and Annie the perfect opportunity to terrorize their almost stepmother-to-be. The remake keeps most of the same pranks as the original such as the girls putting a little lizard on the gold digger's water bottle, telling her to clap two sticks together to keep the mountain lions away, and putting water and sugar in her bug spray. The final, biggest prank is the one that's different. In the remake, they drag Meredith out from her tent on her inflatable bed while she's sleeping and float her out on the lake. I'm surprised she didn't roll into the water. She doesn't fall into the lake until the next morning when she wakes up and is standing up and screaming. Well, of course, you're going to fall into the water if you stand up on an inflatable bed! While I would have been pretty furious if someone did that to me, I would have much rather have that prank played on me than the one Susan and Sharon play on Vicky. These girls pretty much try to have this woman murdered when they put honey on her toes and leave a trail of it so when she wakes up, two bear cubs are licking at her feet. Understandably, she starts screaming and freaking out as any normal person would in that situation. Some guy (I guess the ranch hand) says, "Those are itty bitty bears! They wouldn't hurt a fly!" like it's no big deal. WHAT?!? Sure, those bear cubs may not do any damage, but Mama Bear ain't gonna be too happy! They must not have known about bear safety in the '60s, maybe? They seemed pretty laid back about two bear cubs visiting their camp. Even if they hadn't enticed the bears with honey, they still would have had them as visitors what with all the food they just left out on the tables! Susan and Sharon are just lying in their sleeping bags and I really wanted to smack them. I did not like them after that incident. Don't get me wrong: Annie and Hallie are plenty bratty to Meredith, but they never put her in a dangerous situation where she would have been mauled by a bear! Good God, movie! In the original, Vicky is furious and just leaves and in the remake Meredith is also furious and gives Nick an ultimate: them or her. Of course, he's going to choose his own children over a woman he's only known for a couple of months.

Of course, in both movies, both sets of parents realize they're still in love with each other and reunite. These are Disney movies, after all, of course they're going to have happy endings! I'm not sure where they ended up living, though. I found the original to be more realistic from the fact that the parents really seemed to hate each other so it's easy to see why they got divorced! They were just screaming and snipping at each other quite a bit! I'm not quite sure what was going on there. The parents in the remake seemed to like each other a lot more, but it is revealed they got married pretty quickly so maybe they thought that was a bad idea and that's why they got divorced? I do like the remake better because it came out when I was alive, for one thing, so I am more familiar with it. The original was still good, but there were a few parts that seemed to drag on. There are also a few questionable things in the original that I already mentioned and I did find those sets of twins to be more bratty than the twins in the remake. But Hayley Mills is much more iconic than Lindsay Lohan!

Maid to Order!

Maid in Manhattan
Director: Wayne Wang
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Stanley Tucci, Bob Hoskins
Released: December 13, 2002
Viewed in theaters: December 16, 2002

This movie is like a PG-rated version of Pretty Woman, only replace a prostitute with a hotel maid. As for as romantic comedies go, this one is meh. It's not great, but it's not horrible. Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes are fine in their roles, except they really don't have any chemistry with each other. Lopez is Marissa, a single mother of a ten-year-old boy, Ty. She works as a maid for a fancy New York Hotel where they receive many important guests. This includes Senator Chris (Fiennes) who is staying there with his assistant (Tucci) and dog. All I can tell you about Chris is that he's a Republican...I really don't remember anything else about his politics. Either because it was boring or because there really was nothing else.

The late, great Natasha Richardson plays socialite Caroline who is also staying at the hotel the same time as Chris. She is a bit demanding of Marisa, asking her to do this and do that. This includes taking back a designer outfit to the store that she doesn't want. In one of the stupidest scenes of the movie, while Marissa and a fellow maid friend are in the room with Marissa gathering the garment, her friend eggs her on to try on the outfit. It's white pants, a white sleeveless turtleneck, and a white coat. (Duh, it's the outfit in the above photo!) Marissa says no, she can't do that, but her friend says it's her size and it's going back to the store anyway so it doesn't belong to Caroline so what's the problem? Uh, because you shouldn't try on other people's clothes, you dolt!

Meanwhile, Ty is at the hotel because his dad couldn't pick him up for a trip they were suppose to take so Marissa has to watch him. I don't know why she didn't leave him with her mother, but instead brings him to work. He sneaks off from doing homework and runs into Chris and his assistant and dog in an elevator. Ty knows who he is and Chris is impressed with his knowledge of politics. We had already seen a scene earlier of Ty giving a speech on Richard Nixon, so you'd think the movie was establishing he was into politics, right? No, wrong! He did the speech on Nixon because he's obsessed with the '70s as J-Lo later tells Fiennes. WTF? What kind of kid from 2002 likes the '70s? Nobody likes the '70s! Horrible music, horrible fashion, horrible home furnishings! It's the decade that gave us The Brady Bunch for god's sake! I mean, c'mon!

So Chris tells Ty that he is taking his dog for a walk and Ty asks if he can come and Chris says sure why not. Okay, yeah, just go for a walk with Voldemort! But seriously, it's a little weird that Chris is letting a young boy take a walk with him. Like that's not going to be suspicious to people who see that in the paper. He tells Ty to get permission from his mom so he takes them all up to Caroline's suite (I guess she told him where she would be) and Marisa is wearing the all-white ensemble (and quickly hides the tag). She gives a "be quiet" motion to her son not to blow her cover and pretends to be the Caroline who is staying in the suite. She goes out for a walk with Chris in Central Park wearing that all white outfit. You think something is going to happen, like a rip or a stain, and while there is a moment of horror when a magazine gets stuck to her butt (don't ask), everything is fine and she is able to return the outfit to the closet (she never had time to return it to the store) safe and sound. And not only do they walk around Central Park, but they also go to the zoo. So you're outside for a couple hours and don't even get one little stain on all that white fabric? Uh huh.

Chris is very taken with "Caroline" and wants to meet her again. However, when he sends a note to the suite asking Caroline to meet him for lunch, the note gets to the real Caroline and she is giddy because she had met Chris before once and knew they had "shared a moment". Marisa and the head butler (Bob Hoskins) are there to help out (I don't know why they need two people to help serve two people eating lunch...) and Marissa has to hide herself so Chris doesn't see her. Remember, he doesn't know she's a maid and thinks she's a rich socialite! When Chris sees a white blond woman enter, he is very confused and asks where that hot Latina woman is. Okay, he didn't say that! He actually referred to her as "Mediterranean." Butler Hoskins realizes that it's Marissa he's referring to and lets her leave so she can quit hiding behind flower vases and tea pots.

While driving somewhere, Chris sees Marissa and Ty walking and pulls over to talk to them. He tells them he's going to the Bronx to...I don't remember....and Marissa says "Blah, blah, you can't learn everything from just visiting there once. You didn't grow up there like I did or live there like I do." You think that this is going to be a political movement that will bring them closer together. Maybe Marissa will point out some issues that need to be addressed within her home district and he will bring awareness to it, but no, it never goes there.

He invites her to some ball, and Marissa, still keeping up the charade, gets all dolled up in her Cinderella moment. There she runs into Caroline who recognizes her and outs her in front of Chris and everybody and accuses her of wearing her clothes. Somehow she found out about that...I forgot how. Marissa is fired and Chris is angry she lied to her. Who really cares. They only spent a day walking in a park and then had a one night stand after the Cinderella dance. But then Ty brings them back together and they become one of New York's most high profiled couple! GROAN!

Oh, I forgot to mention another really stupid scene: Marissa needs something, so she goes down to the hotel's gift shop (I'm assuming) and the woman at the register is talking on the phone and it's obvious she's talking with a friend and not helping out a customer and she's just blowing off Marissa and the other people behind her until Marissa finally yells at her and tells her to do her damn job. This scene is only in here to establish that Marissa would make a fine good manager, a job that her friend has applied her for. I have never seen somebody in customer service blatantly ignoring a customer while talking to a friend on the phone. You would have to be PRETTY STUPID to do that!

The more I think about it, the more stupid this movie is!