Think back to your teenage years. What do you remember? Horror? Embarrassment? This is the underlying theme of the new Drew Barrymore movie, Never Been Kissed. Josie Gellar (Drew Barrymore) is a copy editor for the Chicago Sun-Times. She loves writing and almost seems to think poetically. When she says something, she chooses words so appropriate and concise that she paints a picture for the person to whom she is speaking. She leaves her listener in awe. The fact remains, however, that Josie is a geek. She loves correcting other people’s grammar and pitching story ideas to her boss. Even though she works for the newspaper, she has never actually written a story.
In a surprise move, the stern—and somewhat insane— Rigfort (Garry Marshall), the newspaper’s chief editor, assigns Josie the opportunity to fulfill her dream of writing an article for the Sun-Times. He instructs her to enroll in high school the following Monday and become an undercover high school student. Josie is giddy with happiness and runs off to inform her brother Rob (David Arquette) of the good news.
She finds Rob at his workplace, the Tiki Post, which is a campy, Hawaiian-themed version of Federal Express. Josie exclaims, “You are looking at the new undercover reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.” She then explains her mission in more detail.
Rob replies by asking, “Do you even remember high school? Do you remember what they called you?”
Through a flashback sequence, Josie remembers standing in front of a classroom full of peers who were chanting “Josie-Grossie.” She disdainfully repeats the nickname to her brother.
“I know,” Rob consoles. “I made it up, but I didn’t think it would catch on like it did.”
Thus Josie Gellar finds herself back in high school, eight years senior to the Senior Class. Flashback sequences scattered throughout the movie reveal bits of Josie’s high school experience, and from this we learn that Josie was a geek her first time in high school. Picking back up right where she left off, Josie’s first new friend is Aldys (Leelee Sobieski). Aldys is a true nerd and a member of the “Denominators,” the campus math club. Josie fits in well with the Denominators, but soon learns that she must become popular if she wants to get a good story. Her quest for popularity is revealed through the rest of the movie, as is her quest for true love—her new high school English teacher.
The audience constantly reacted to the movie. They laughed at the appropriate times, but there were also times that made them audibly voice their embarrassment. An example of the audience’s embarrassment for Josie is the prom night flashback. Josie reads a poem aloud to the English class in which she reveals certain feelings for the most popular boy at school. Later, Josie’s good friend finds her in the library to tell her the latest gossip—that the popular boy intends to ask her to the prom. On prom night, Josie stands on the front porch, waving to her date’s limousine. He stands up in the sunroof and hurls eggs at her. Then his real date, a curvy blonde, stands up in the sunroof with him. They laugh at Josie as the chauffeur whisks them away. Josie is mortified. The audience reacts to this scene with utterances of pity.
When I saw this movie I was seated immediately behind twenty fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. Watching their reaction to the movie was almost as entertaining as the movie itself. At times, I caught myself thinking during their laughter, “Yeah, you think that’s funny, but you don’t know how funny it really is.” There were references that these viewers didn’t even understand. The movie is brilliantly written on two levels—one for the high school students and the other for the alumni. Eventually, Josie gains her sought-after popularity, but she still cannot think of an angle for her story. Knowing that both of their jobs depend on her success, her immediate supervisor has Josie wired with a camera and microphone. This picks up what Josie sees and hears and broadcasts it back to a technician who has a van set up outside the school parking lot. The technician then sends it to Josie’s supervisor, who watches her actions for a story. Once people in the newspaper office discover that Josie’s escapades at South Glen High are being shown, they, at first, sit around on their breaks and watch what happens. Then as Josie’s popularity increases, the viewers in the office increase as well. When Josie attends the prom, everyone stays late at work to watch it. This provided some very comical scenes of the movie because Josie’s coworkers got the chance to relive high school again through her eyes. These “soap opera” scenes are a good example of how the movie is written on the two different levels.
Josie has to lose her story to wind up getting it in the end. She finally reveals to her classmates that she is an undercover reporter. This is obviously a big surprise to her “peers,” but more notably, it is a surprise to the English teacher who shares a mutual affection for her. He is understandably irritated about Josie’s whole scam. She tries to explain, but he tells her that he can’t trust her anymore and that he doesn’t know the real her. Josie loses all of her friends at South Glen. The next school day, we see the real Josie Gellar, dressed in business attire. She goes in to get her scoop, and get it she does, and in doing so, she wins back all of the friends she thought she had lost.
Never Been Kissed has a perfect balance of comedy and drama, much like our own teenage years. It forces you to remember your own days of awkwardness and relive them at the same time. Even though Josie is twenty-five, she matures throughout the course of the movie. In a sense, that makes the movie not so much a romantic-comedy, but more of a very interesting bildingsroman.
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