Never Been Kissed (1999)

Review by Erin Walker

In Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore stars as Josie Gellar, a news reporter for the Chicago Sun Times, and as the title says, she's never been kissed. As the film opens, Josie receives her first undercover assignment: she must enroll in a local high school, where she is to collect information about teenagers today. Josie, though excited by the challenge, is worried: her own high school years were spent as an unattractive geek, being endlessly ridiculed and humiliated by her peers. Barrymore plays a very convincing role and is completely believeable as a geek. David Arquette, who plays Josie's lively brother Rob, also puts in a great performance as the one to come and save her like he should have when they were in high school the first time. It was Rob who gave her the awful nickname Josie Grossie, a name she never lived down.

When Josie first enrolls at South Glen South, she tries her hardest to win over the popular crowd. Those wonderful girls, the ones who she was to win over, snub her. She is accepted by Aldys, who has the horrid nick name of Alpo. Becoming fast friends, Josie joins the Denominators, the geek squad of the school, and feels herself. Her comfort in herself attracts the attention, and ultimately the love, of her English teacher. The risk of losing her job forces Josie to put in another attempt to become popular. These trials fail, and in comes Rob to save the day.

From that point on, the story is very Hollywood. She is accepted into the popular crowd, even going as far as to win Prom Queen. When the other "lemmings" decide to play a cruel joke on Aldys, Josie exposes herself for who she truly is, a 25 yr old undercover reporter.

In the end, Josie writes an amazing story about her discoveries, but not of today's youth. They are the findings of herself. She speaks openly about what she found inside. She also spoke of the love she has for Mr. Coulson. The ending is quite sweet and gives you a tingle, feeling good that one of the fellow nerds has found what she is looking for: herself.

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Trivia:

Jeremy Jordan, who portrays Guy Perkins in Never Been Kissed, has had a brief career in Pop music with a top-ten hit, "Right Kind of Love," which was featured on the Beverly Hills 90210 Soundtrack.

Leelee Sobieski barely missed out playing opposite Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire (1994), losing the role of Claudia to Kirsten Dunst. However, she later got her second chance to act with Cruise, as Milich's Daughter in Stanley Kubrick's final opus, Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

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