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The hairy bird (All I wanna do; Strike!)
Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities
Movie propaganda
For Odie Sinclair (Gaby Hoffman), a pretty but moody teenager, being sent to Miss Godard's prep school for girls midway through the year is a little bit like being sent to prison. Miss Godard's has all kinds of rules, and a lot is expected of the girls there. But Odie soon discovers that the girls at miss Godard's also have a lot of fun, and most important, the school is something of a haven where girls can behave, well, just like girls since there are no boys in sight.
After a tour of the campus guided by Abby (Rachael Leigh Cook), an uptight, brown-nosing monitor on the self-government committee, Odie just wants to hug her horse and cry. But things start looking up when Odie meets her new roommates, Verena von Stefan (Kirsten Dunst) and Tinka Parker (Monica Keena). Verena is a smart girl who likes to break the rules, Tinka is a smart-mouthed beauty, and both are impressed by Odie's worldliness and collection of groovy Motown records.
Then they learn that Miss Godard's is in dire financial straights and that the only way the school will survive is by merging with St Ambrose - an all boys' school in New Hampshire...
Also starring Lynn Redgrave as Miss McVane, Tom Guiry as Frosty Frost, Vincent Kartheiser as Snake, Matthew Lawrence as Dennis, Heather Matarazzo as Tweety Goldberg, Merritt Wever as Momo Haines, Robert Bockstael as Mr Dewey and Brenda Devine as Miss Phipps. Written and directed by Sarah Kernochan.
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Theatrical report
A whole bunch of poor little rich girls.
But what makes this film worth seeing is that they aren't just poor little rich girls, they're individual young women with joys and anguishes and hormones. Their anguishes are real (albeit upper class) and their joys are fully human, while their hormones, well, need I say more? The threat of merging with a boy's school is more than a threat to tradition, it is a threat to an institution that turns girls into individual young women.
That is where the fire in this film comes from, the need to protect the safest place they have in a world which isn't ready for women who think, let alone speak their mind. This is the early days of the modern women's movement, the striving of women for the rights of human beings.
Everyone performs brilliantly. The six core girls (including Merritt weaver as hyper-intelligent Momo and Heather Matarazzo as anorexic Tweety) are stunning, presenting subtle characterisations of challenging characters. Lynn Redgrave, as headmistress Miss McVane, is simply superb.
There are many incredibly funny moments and some dreadfully black ones, too, and that makes for a rich texture in a film that could so easily have been a 90s version of Pretty in pink. I am delighted to recommend this film for your viewing pleasure.
Security censorship classification
M (Sexual references, adolescent themes)
Surveillance time
98 minutes (1:38 hours)
Not for public release in Australia before date
Film: 10 September 2001
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