A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: What a Girl Wants

Date Viewed: 4/12/03

Details:

Amanda Bynes

Colin Firth

Kelly Preston

Anna Chancellor

Tom Harper

Jonathan Pryce

Eileen Atkins

Director: Dennie Gordon

Score: 1/2

The Review: There must be a subliminal message embedded in this movie that requires all commentary on it to include the word 'Cinderella.' OK, against my better judgment, I've now satisfied that compulsion. The comparison is not inapt, just overly classifying and restrictive. Sure, there is a ugly (almost) stepsister, a scheming (almost) stepmother, and slimy advisors -- but is this bad? Perhaps it just makes the movie familiar and comfortable, so you can relax and enjoy the fun that's hidden between the lines. Like "Mr Dashwood" -- Colin Firth's character name, both here, and in his acclaimed Pride & Prejudice.

This is light fluff, an enjoyable confection with good performances by Colin Firth and Kelly Preston. An American teenager (Bynes) decides to wander off to England to find her father (Firth) -- a father who does not know he's a father, since her mother (Preston) was shuffled off the estate long ago by one of the slimy advisors before her pregnancy could be divulged. Part of the entertainment is sheer archetypal culture shock ("two countries separated by the same language," and "we don't hug, dear; we're British"), and part the characters. Atkins is wonderful as the "old bat," the Dashwood matriarch and Bynes' grandmother; and Chancellor does a snotty turn reminiscent of her 1994 role in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

(26-Apr-03)

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