The Phantom Tollbooth - Movies Reviews Index


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Home Subscribe About Us Features News Album Reviews Movie Reviews Past Movies Movie Resources Concert Reviews Book Reviews Top 10 Contact Us	I Love You, Beth Cooper Stars: Paul Rust, Hayden Panettiere, Jack Carpenter, Lauren London, Shawn Roberts, Lauren Storm, Jared Keeso, Marie Avgeropoulos, Brendan Penny, Alan Ruck, Cynthia Stevenson and Pat Finn Director: Chris Columbus Scriptwriter: Larry Doyle from his novel 20th Century Fox Rating: PG 13 for crude and sexual content, language, drug references and teen drinking and violence Running Length: 105 minutes Ah, graduation day and graduation night. Some parties are memorable and some are not. In this film, we sample two parties, one rich and one average and neither is interesting. In fact, about 30 minutes of this film is interesting, and the other 75 minutes is repetitive and slow moving. Five years from now, the stars (who look older than high school age) will probably forget this film, directed by Chris Columbus. The story begins on Graduation Day with the valedictorian, Denis (Paul Rust) giving a speech and ending up proclaiming his love to the girl who sat in front of him for years, Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere.) Not only is this embarrassing to her, but he also hints that a classmate is gay, another is shallow, and yet another (Beth’s semi-military boyfriend, Kevin played by Shawn Roberts) can’t get along in the real world. Beth and her posse, Cammy (Lauren London) and Treece (Lauren Storm) think Denis is kind of cute and go to his party, which is pretty tame. That is, until Kevin and his posse crash the party (and trash the house) in a jealous rage. From here until the end of the film, we have Kevin chasing Denis and Beth and trashing whatever house/place he comes to, including a rich girl's party. The jokes contain the usual I’ve-drunk-too-much, let’s-go-skinny-dipping, let’s-tip-over-a-cow and let’s-go-to-another-party. This is yawnsville. What does brighten the film is Beth’s erratic driving and a flashback to her in high school Driver’s Ed class. Also, Denis parents (Cynthia Stevenson and Paul Ruck who reminds me of D. B. Sweeney) leave the house for the kids to have a party and then have to find a roadside place for themselves to neck. The acting in this film is good, but the script, that goes all over the map, betrays the actors. There are so many prime topics going on from one boy trying to figure out if he is gay, to another admitting to being a bully to a boy overcoming shyness to boys thinking of girlfriends as possessions, that are offered and then overlooked. The script seems to be trying to compress a mini-series into 105 minutes. This is a lost opportunity to have a film with grit and instead it is not effective. In the film, Beth drives a small, blue mini-mini-van. If you see one coming down the road, duck. Copyright 2009 Marie Asner