Pretty Good

Powerful

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

She Gets What She Wants, also known as "Slap Her, She's French," this little movie is about a solipsistic Texas high-school cheerleader named Starla (Jane McGregor), whose family takes in a foreign exchange student from France named Genevieve (Piper Perabo). The plot then devolves into a less subtle version of Mean Girls (2004) with the Genevieve becoming popular at school, stealing the affections of the family and taking Starla's place on the cheer- leading squad. Will young Starla be able to take her social life back or will the conniving Genevieve successfully ruin her future.This movie was released overseas mere months before the invasion of Iraq and wasn't given a TV release in the United States until 2005. By that time freedom-fries were all the rage and Franco-hatred was on the rise. The creators probably felt there was finally a market for this unfairly shelved movie. Thing is this movie is less about Americans hating on France's stance on Iraq than it is a sardonic and satiric look at American culture told from an outsider's perspective. Starla, our protagonist is so insulated to the trappings of American life that she doesn't realize there's something very off about Genevieve. The final reveal at the end of the film only reinforces that idea that our culture as a whole conditions us to be self-centered, confrontational and petty. Even if that comes at the cost of our reputation. Now, in 2015 we've stopped eating freedom-fries but there's not a chance in hell we're eating humble pie.

Reading through these reviews, I must agree with a lot of points I hate agreeing with. It's a comedy and not supposed to be taken seriously. That much is true, but if not taking something seriously is what makes a good comedy, then Epic Movie is a comedy masterpiece.But no, Epic Movie is painfully terrible, and so is this film. This does not imply I don't have a sense of humor like many will probably accuse me of. I actually find some parts that I COULD find funny in some circumstances, but here I don't.The film clearly implies that it's meant to be a comedy with a slight serious edge to it. Okay, the comedy in itself is slightly amusing at best and gave me a bit of a chuckle in one part or another. So it shouldn't deserve a score so low as 1/10, right? Well, maybe not, but it's the highest I can give when the rest of the movie is so hateful. I found only the little brother likable, and he was like from another world compared to the rest of the characters. The main protagonist in particular, is stupid, shallow, narrow-minded, homophobic c**t who always gets what she wants despite being a bimbo of a repulsive personality. And when things get ruined for her I'm probably supposed to feel sorry for her, but I start feeling good.When a movie clearly wants me to root for one character, but ends up making me hate him/her from the deepest reaches of my soul, something is done terribly wrong. Even the environment where Starla lives in seems to feed her success with its culture and that is just unsettling. It makes me wonder in fear, if this culture actually exists in America or is this a plain parody of it. Even if it's just a parody, the rest of the film just ruins it for me. Especially when in the end Starla could have just learned, that being such a terrible person isn't the best way to live, she ultimately wins and learns that it is okay to be terrible, because if you're popular, you'll survive everything. That and no clear mark of any lesson learned in the process make me want to write an alternate ending where Starla and her new boyfriend (forgot his name) have their car explode on their face as they drive in the horizon at the end of the film.And still it would be letting her go easy...

This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long while and I went to see this with friends, basically it turned us into those kids you hate in movies.The movie had no plot at all and the pointless turns which drove it about was as good as sticking a knife into a toaster whilst it's cooking. The characters were poorly acted out and very stereotypical. The scenes dragged out a lot and I really can't describe any it was that bad in taste. I'm presuming they were trying a cliché of high school angst and romance but it failed in any of those subjects.A waste unfortunately.

This says more about Texans than it does about the French, but was the joke realized by its target audience? If you like cheesy films you can thrown popcorn at in the multiplex this is an ideal date movie. Its stereotyping, inane plot-twists and exaggerated performances reinforce its generic limitations, but I presume it wasn't supposed to expand anyone's mind. It has many funny moments and some good lines, and for a refreshing change, the subject of derision is satirized as much as the accuser. The best part of the film is its title but it could also have been called, Slap her she's Texan. Would that be too controversial? Seems as if the French are an easy target for Hollywood now.