This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Off Broadway, Way Off
Plot Overview
Calum Steppe (Tom McCamus) a veritable rock star and
beauteous babe Karen (Glenne Headly) fell in love upon
meeting. They got married and had a child, a product of their love,
Mary. Years later they had twin girls loved as well. Karen was a
nutritious, balanced meal lovingly prepared, but Calum had a roving
eye and partook of take-out pizza and microwaved snacks.
They got divorced. Calum being an actor kept living in the rent-
controlled apartment to be near his New York venue while Karen a
flexible potter moved with kids to New Jersey where she could work
out of her garage just as well. Mary (Lindsay Lohan) at 15 goes by
the name “Lola” now and laments her lack of acting
opportunity in the new place.
Lola tries out for the lead role in the drama club's
“Pygmalian,” which in George Bernard Shaw's classic was
about a lower class London broad limited in opportunities by
her Cockney accent. On a wager one Professor Higgins determines to
tutor her in the King's English and well-bred manners. In
this adaptation mean girl Carla Santini (Megan Fox,)
Lola's nemesis in the school's hierarchy, had ironically
persuaded the school teacher Miss Baggoli (Carol Kane) to change
the setting to modern New York and make the poor girl's handicap a
thick New York accent. Could there be any doubt the new girl from
New York would win the part?
Lola and
her “square” friend Ella Gerard (Alison Pill) contrive
to get parental permissions to go to the farewell concert of
their favorite rock band playing in NYC. Lola also wants to crash the cast party, but
she needs something “drop-dead gorgeous” to wear.
She tries hitting up her mom who tells her the car broke down
costing $600 and she had to buy a new kiln. “Do you
think,” she asks, “you could look ‘absolutely
perfect’ in something you already own?” She does
in fact look pretty good the way she dresses every day, but I'm a
guy, so what do I know? For perspective, I'll quote from Frederic
Howe's Confessions:
In the fall of 1889 I set out for Baltimore with my earnings as a hotel clerk increased by a hundred and fifty dollars given me by my father. I realized later how much it had cost him to gather together even that sum, for a hundred dollars bulked larger than five hundred does to-day [1925.] Before my departure he took me to the best tailor in town and had me outfitted in a cutaway suit. It was very expensive, made of broadcloth with broad satin stripes running up and down the material. It would usher me into the big world. This kindness of my father's caused me more unhappiness than any unkindness I ever experienced at his hands. The striped suit made me a marked man. In classrooms and on the street it proclaimed the small town from which I came. It was far too good to be discarded; my sense of thrift and regard for my father would not permit of that. So it had to be worn. It was my first hair-shirt. (22)
Lola is “not exactly a que será será person.” She enlists the aid of her boyfriend-to-be Sam (Eli Marienthal) to “borrow” Eliza Doolittle's dress from the costume room at school. It will be returned in the morning.
Ideology
An obscure biblical personage Agur (Prov. 30:1) while not claiming to be any great one offers a chapter of advice to his buddies, (Prov. 30:2-3) “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.” He gives four career nuggets sized down to his level: (Prov. 30:24) “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:”
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” The first career counsel is to start working early, in the summer of life. At the tender age of fifteen Lola secures the lead role in a school play. She is on her way up.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” Their dwellings offer them protection. The next important career step is to settle in a good location for one's chosen field. Calum sticks to New York where he flourishes in the theater.
(Prov. 30:27) “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.” Another step is to develop an informal support network. Lola has her friend Ella, they get all their parents on board for their excursion to the big city, and—get this—she even gives her enemy a hand. That's not even mentioning the rock star she takes up with.
(Prov. 30:28) “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” That palace gets swept regularly, but the spider just puts up a new web. When Eliza Doolittle becomes over qualified for a supermarket checkout girl, she moves on to, “I will be a teacher, because being a teacher is the most worthy thing a person can be.” Teaching is better than the alternative: “‘And when you reach my age, it may be the East River for you.’ ¶“That was a common expression of the men who were out of work. Occasionally we heard of one of the shop-girls who had taken that road of escape. There seemed to be much of that kind of despair in 1892.” (Howe 45)
Production Values
“” (2004) was directed by Sara Sugarman. Its screenplay was written by Gail Parent, based on the novel, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Dyan Sheldon. It stars Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Adam Garcia and Alison Pill. Lohan the lead gave a tour de force performance. She was easy on the eyes. The others were adequate.
Casting an African-
American in the school play's role of a consummate college
professor whose goal it was to inculcate proper English in a New
Yorker went counter to the stereotype of black English
speakers taking liberties with the language. From the jive talk of
“Airplane” to the ebonics of “Operation Fortune” to the lazy diction
of “In Dahomey” (“Evah dahkey is a King / Royalty
is jes' de ting”) not to mention countless movies with black
speakers in the background, negroes are portrayed as needing
English instruction, not ones to bestow it. Here aside from a few
lines spoken in the play itself, a locker room comment, and a
school room taunt, none of the blacks at the school have a speaking
part. The colored adults in the city do, however, be it security at
the concert, bouncer at the party, or Sgt. Rose (Alison Sealy-Smith) at the
police station. They spoke with an edge of authority, and to be
sure, a school teacher does well to speak with it too.
MPA rated it PG for mild thematic elements and brief language. Filming locations included Oakville, Ontario, Canada. The editing was creative in a good way. Runtime ≈ 1½ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
I grew up in the country but was moved to the city while in Junior High. My ninth grade music class came up with a production of Pygmalian, but it didn't help my English grade or get my speech beyond its rural roots. A technical higher education taught me how to write a decent engineering report as far as that goes. Any further improvement of my English took a lot of hard work. It's easier said than done.
Disney included a not so subtle subtext about honoring one's parents, being truthful, and respecting others.
“Confessions” succeeded within its own genre, being interesting and charming while telling a comprehensive if sometimes enigmatic story. If you can take it as it is, you'll like it.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Howe, Frederic C. Confessions of a Reformer. Copyright, 1925, by Charles Scribner's Sons. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org