"Extra Credit for 'She's All That'"

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by Desson Howe, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Washington Post Weekend--Friday January 29, 1999

"She's All That" is a trifle, a fluffy romantic comedy full of prom queens, geeks, and jocks. But the movie, which stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook, is more fun than you could reasonably expect of a movie designed to appeal to the Dawson's Creek generation.

Of course, you may have to be still suffering the slings and arrows of high school. And you should definitely find it funny when a guy is forced to eat pizza with a clump of something, uh, associated with the Clarence Thomas hearings sticking out of the cheese.

Honor student and jock Zack(Prinze) and his social-climbing girlfriend Taylor(Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) are the most popular item at their Los Angeles high school. But when Taylor dumps Zack for a self-impressed moron called Brock(Matthew Lillard) who's a star on the TV show "The Real World," the school's social equilibrium is thrown off. These guys were going to be prom king and queen, after all.

When Zack idly suggests that any girl, no matter how low on the social ladder, could replace Taylor, his friend Dean(Paul Walker) takes him at his word. Dean selects the unsuspecting victim for Zack to transform into his new prom queen: Laney Boggs(Cook), a bespectacled, socially aware eco-painter who worries about Bosnia and dabbles in dark, angry paintings. Zack has six weeks.

If you don't know the rest of this story, you obviously haven't seen enough junk teen comedies or read enough Shakespeare. This genre is not known for narrative surprise. But what makes it palatable is the wacky stuff between clunky story points.

"What is this, some kind of dork outreach program?" asks Laney when Zack expresses his interest in her.

It's funny, too, when Zack infiltrates Laney's social world to find himself watching a bad performance-art show, featuring flashing video images on the walls and three people(one guy wearing underpants) hugging each other inside a billowing sheet. It's hard not to guffaw when Brock bursts into a party and starts gyrating with satirical vigor, as if Jim Carrey were making fun of those lithe dancers on "In Living Color." That's about as deep as it gets here, so if you're looking for "Twelfth Night," you walked into the wrong theater.