TGIF + Britney Spears = Tiger Beat Heaven

Film

Drive Me Crazy

Directed by John Schultz

Starring Melissa Joan Hart, Adrian Grenier

Twentieth Century Fox

Drive Me Crazy

Directed by John Schultz

Starring Melissa Joan Hart, Adrian Grenier

Twentieth Century Fox

Melissa Joan Hart has crow's feet, but I don't care. I still think that she is just as absolutely as adorable now as she ever was--even though according to "Clarissa Explains It All", she should officially not own a single item from Claire's Accessories. But she is still terrifically cute in a terrifically cute movie that is exactly what one would expect from the reigning diva of ABC's TGIF.

In her first feature film Drive Me Crazy she almost lives up to her guest appearance on teen guru Britney Spears new MTV hit video of the same name. This is not a stretch from her previous work, but that is not such a bad thing (remember Elizabeth Berkeley trying to shed her teenybopper image in Showgirls? Neither do I. Staying with what you know can be an extraordinary move, actually). Yet this movie, even (or dare I say especially?) in its clichd nature, pushes that cute little button that makes us all instantly comforted by the tender orderliness of a happy ending.

Drive Me Crazy, an adaptation of Todd Strasser's novel How I Created the Perfect Prom Date, is a not-so-biblical parable of high school life, a caricature of how everyone remembers high school only when they are very far away from it. You can basically figure out the entire plot of Drive Me Crazy before it even begins. Popular girl (Hart) and rebel boy (Adrian Grenier) are neighbors. Popular girl wants popular boy. Rebel boy wants rebel girl. Popular girl and rebel boy feign coupledom (Can't Buy Me Love style) to make the ones that they only think they love absolutely smitten with jealously. Rather clever, eh? Of course you must factor in the "in"-crowd sunning in the courtyard (complete with a 90's style flagrant homosexual) and the outies making life miserable for the innies--in a way that anyone who was not a J. Crew pedagogue in high school can appreciate. Sprinkle in a cyber-romance, a couple of tequila shots and a big handful of bra-strap headbands, and you've got a movie. But this movie is also a crash-course in teen angst, dealing with issues of deadbeat dads, cancer-fighting moms, weight problems and basically any other issue that can currently be seen on any late-night Lifetime movie. And, like any self-respecting teensploitation movie, the soundtrack is righteous--a noble dance version of Backstreet Boys "I Want it that Way" actually steals the show at several key party scenes. But--alas! never fear!--like any movie featuring a song by Britney Spears--you already know the ending. We all know the ending. And that is the beauty of Drive Me Crazy, as of its ancestors, and without question, the many descendents sure to follow.

Sure it's trite, sure Melissa Joan Hart might still clearly remember both the rise and fall of break-dancing, sure high-school dances do not have fifty foot television screens in the center of the dance floor. Although Drive Me Crazy does not have the light-hearted self-mocking tone of Clueless or the moody, pretentious tone of Cruel Intentions, the general theme of the movie is wonderfully formulaic. Indeed this clichd approach to high school works; the triteness of the plot renders this movie awfully comforting; everything always come out okay in the end: candied apples and lollipops for the good, dungeons and dragon-tails for the wicked. We don't really pay upwards of eight dollars to be squeezed into itchy seats or suck up five dollar watered-down Diet Cokes for the clever lines or the skimpy fashions. Instead, we want the oddly satisfying feeling that wondrous, elusive, ephemeral joy--okay, okay, at least a prom date--does come to all in the end.