#12 - He's All That Is More Confounding Than The Original (and the original was baaad)

Look, I’m not here to pretend that the 1999 film She’s All That is a good movie. It’s not! It barely makes sense, there’s a whole scene where the good guy bullies the bullies into eating pubes on a pizza (were the words “hoover it” were far more intimidating back then??), and the editing is wild and it’s clear that at least three storylines ended up on the cutting room floor. But it still managed to become an icon among the iconic era of teen films that graced us in the late 90’s so we’re milking this dead cow again I guess! Is it’s longevity in culture mostly due to the excellent lampooning done by Not Another Teen Movie? Probably! But ignore that for the sake of another soulless Netflix original movie rollout.

I tried to write a coherent piece but honestly this movie filled me with such rage as I watched it that instead I present my list of notes that I wrote. I was high the entire time I watched this and did not laugh once. Not once! Incredible feat, filmmakers. Mark Waters, director of Mean Girls, what happened??

• The movie starts off trying to make a comment about how she wakes up in the morning and does glam and then gets back into bed to pretend to wake up for her followers and I think I’m supposed to see this and think she’s disengenous, but like, it just made me more aware that I’m watching a movie because the first time she gets out of bed…she’s already in full glam for the movie she is in?? Give us a bareface or cut the meta-commentary you’re not smart enough to make, movie!
• This girl is getting a $3000 check from her seemingly only brand partnership—how often is she getting those checks? Is it per post? A mention during a live stream? Is she under contract to Kourtney Kardashians character?
• If losing this one sponsor is enough to throw her entire college fund into jeopardy this girl needs to diversify her revenue streams!!
• I get that maybe they didn’t want to splurge on a social media consultant to give their script a once-over, but maybe the tiktoker they stunt cast could have provided some insight? Right?
• Does she just do livestreams? I feel like this girl should have been a lifestyle YouTuber or something—going live for five minutes at random does not make sense as a digital marketing strategy. Is she only popular on one platform? How long has she been doing this? Why don’t we have a scene of him watching a bunch of her videos and falling for her?!
• She’s head of the dance team, fine. Are we going to ever see her practice? Maybe she and a few friends record a dance for tiktok? No? Because this movie takes place in no real space or time? Got it!
• Addison Rae cannot act but I do have to give her props for the delivery of “you don’t deserve my love and you don’t deserve my croquembouche you croquem-douche” because that is far too many syllables for a comeback and she squeezed them all in there pretty quickly.
• Whyyy make the subject of the bet a dude? Is it because we’re maybe finally starting to see teenage girls as people and it feels extra creepy for a dude to be lying to the subject of the bet for the entire movie? This is no longer She’s All That, this is now just Drive Me Crazy but without the fun neighbor element.
• The dude isn’t even dressed poorly! He’s wearing a Stooges t-shirt under a fitted flannel. If he was walking around a college campus he would be considered a catch. Plus he’s got a film camera. Drop this boy at the Bedford stop and he wouldn’t need a makeover to get a girl.
• Did this movie originally have a point to make about influencers that they just had to completely de-fang once Addison got cast?
• Oh, he’s a horse boy!
• Why isn’t this horse boy thing working for me?? Where is this stable in relation to their school/homes? How early does he show up and where are the other stable hands—is this teenager entrusted to feed and turn out an entire barn before high school? Does he get paid or is this a volunteer thing? This stable feels very English and yet they’re riding Western. It is also clearly midday and they’re trying to convince me it’s before school.
• Why is he making her mount from the ground without giving her a hand—that’s like the worst possible thing he could do for that poor horse! She has absolutely no idea how to not put her weight on their spine!! Irrisposible horse conduct!
• She threw horse poop at him as part of their meet-cute? I’ve shoveled many a pound of horse shit, I would lose my mind if anyone ever threw manure at me as a flirting technique. There’s scat play in this film and I am not comfortable with that.
• See, Lainey Boggs was not just an uggo with glasses, she was portrayed as legitimately off-putting to her classmates and the victim of some serious bullying. Her art class peers semi-sincerely suggest she kill herself in one of the best written bullying scenes of all time. This kid is just aggro and purposefully antagonizes people—they are not the same!
• Addison Rae is “known” for makeovers but we get no evidence, movie, I beg you, please show a single fucking montage or something. Also, if she’s known for makeovers and her followers are supposed to be into the fact she’s making this dude over, wouldn’t she tell him so that she could get better content? Like at the heart of this bet is her wanting to win back her brand sponsorships, which is not going to happen if she’s just vaguely posting about this dude? Is he aware his image is being broadcast to her millions of followers?
• This movie is making me feel like She’s All That is well written because at least in that film Zach has to try to get Lainey to like him, and then even after the hackey-sack vulnerability monologue she still tells him off for trying to compliment her eyes (which shows us as the audience that her walls remain UP and he’s going to have to genuinely try if he wants her to trust him, which, as a reminder, she should not trust him because she is the subject of a cruel bet he has going on with Paul Walker). This movie…they laugh together instantly. It’s lame, they earn nothing in regards to this relationship.
• Rich kids get their parties catered by Pizza Hut and KFC now, who knew!
• Addison is singing Teenage Dream, the song starts at a weird lyric and ends at a weird lyric. Why! Also, him going on stage to “save” her when she’s embarrassing herself in front of the croquemdouche does NOTHING because it’s not like he has given us any indication of stage fright or something. They’re not overcoming anything in this moment AND her arm glitches out on the green screen. This is no Mandy Moore singing Stupid Cupid at the beach bash.
• I think they’re trying to make this movie gayer by having the two friends fall in love? Sure? I guess it’s always good to see some lesbian/bi teens, wherever they may appear. Oh? They each have like a total of three lines to each other. This doesn’t feel forced or rushed at all! We love representation!!
• Feels like a real missed opportunity to not have them bond over photography. Like, if you want to make the point that being an influencer isn’t super easy, there’s a million things they could have done around him being into film photos and her being all about digital media. She takes photos that (allegedly) millions of people like and comment on and he’s (allegedly) never let anyone see his photography before and the movie does nothing with this information.
• His Dad lives in Sweden “by choice” what does that meeeean.
• HIS MOM DIED IN A PLANE CRASH WOWOWOW we’re really amping up the tragic drama with that one.
• They specify it was a small plane, which are statistically way more likely to crash so I appreciate the over-explainy commitment to realism.
• Addison does not know how to respond to this, which in real life would be fair, but clearly she has failed the script as much as it has failed her in this scene.
• His makeover is lame because his scruffy beard was makeup and his hair was a wig. There wasn’t even like a fun intimacy to the shaving scene? Like I get it’s not going to be a Bond/Moneypenny situation but like…maybe something with a bit of chemistry? He’s not even getting a staircase entrance!!!! PUT THAT BOY ON SOME STEPS! MAKE HIM TRIP WHILE KISS ME BY SIXPENCE NONE THE RICHER PLAYS!!!! What are we even DOING HERE MOVIE!!!!
• Gatsby parties are so tired, and it’s extremely apparent that none of the teens got that “Drop It Like F. Scott” was a pun on “Drop It Like It’s Hot” because that song came out in 2004 and some of them weren’t even born yet.
• Her douchey ex-boyfriend is the best part of this movie, much like Matthew Lillard was a standout performance in the original. This screenwriter (because it’s the same guy!!) can really write a douchey high school kid.
• I hate Promposals, this is a particularly low effort one (Prom?’ written on a semi-bad photo of her? weeeak) and I fully blame Laguna Beach for bringing this plague into the cultural zeitgeist.
• Oooo the ‘Am I a fucking bet’ really didn’t land the same, but this kid is trying his best. I feel like they could have had a more interesting plot of her friend outting the bet through tiktok by stitching on one of Addison’s videos or something.
• Why include his little sister? Anna Paquin had a point in the original movie, she’s the one who performs the makeover (which, by the way, includes giving her a flattering bob haircut I resent that we have collectively remembered it as ponytail down, it wasn’t, give rachel leigh cooks jawline the limelight it deserves!) and Kieran Culkin is an iconic weirdo younger sibling, a role he continues to deeply excel at to this day! (Wallace & Roman both fit this description, fight me.)
• Kieran Culkin, now there’s a cameo I would have cared about!
• She’s going to college “in new york” is that really the best we could do? He hates college! Interesting! Are they going to have a discussion about trade schools or the pressure to take out student loans, or the crushing realization that degrees are not useful when everyone has one? No? He’s just vaguely anti-college? Got it.
• Addison’s prom dress has adjustable straps and the mesh/net tit curtain isn’t in her skin tone did they get this off the rack at a DEB store I’m confused.
• Wait she seriously just compared losing followers to this kid losing his mom and the movie tried to couch it so it didn’t seem as fucking wildly heartless but uhhhhh yeah it is no matter how you try to justify that wow!
• The dance off in the original is iconic and non-sensical (they try to have Usher handwave it by calling out the moves/saying that he taught them the dance) but in this one they over-explain that the dance team usually performs, but now it’s a dance battle because Addisons ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend have started a ““rival dance crew”” off screen?? I blame CinemaSins for every movie feeling the need to over-explain itself. This scene is also way too long and there is no tension between these very boring characters!
• She wins prom queen and gives a speech and tries to include her “outtake” photos and yep, it falls as flat as it possibly could.
• He’s riding a horse towards her? Oh, he immediately lampshades the grand gesture by saying he trailered the horse to the school. Lame. Also, why is he making the grand gesture??
• I feel like this movie was scared to give Addisons character any flaws, so we don’t get any satisfying growth from her. The only thing she does “wrong” is lie to her friends about not being poor and the movie makes it incredibly clear that being poor would mean she’s ostracized so you kind of get why she would do that anyway. It’s not even like her content changes as she grows as a person or whatever.
• The first movie understood the humiliation that Lainey went through being the subject of a bet and made Zach even the score in their relationship by committing to his “go nude at graduation” punishment for losing the bet. When he throws her the soccer ball its adorable and it weirdly works because he’s putting himself in a vulnerable position and they’re in on it together and it’s cute and it gives you those fun romcom tingles right at the end of the movie. In this one…they both get the word ‘loser’ tattooed on them. WHY WOULD HE GET THAT TATTOO THIS IS SO UNEARNED.
• The amount of product placement in this movie was jarring, worse than the Hamptons Gossip Girl episodes where all the characters ordered Smart Waters by their weird little names.

The movie cursed itself from the beginning by having the focus of the film be on the person making the bet, and not the person who is the subject of said bet. We don’t sympathize with her at all because she is actively doing a bad thing, and this dude is kind of hapless and strung along and then for some reason HE performs a grand gesture at the end? Not once but twice? They genderswapped the plot but forgot to get rid of the typical gender roles within romcoms, so, that’s lame!

Overall, don’t watch this movie! Netflix original content seems to be made with the first pass of any given script and I’m bummed because I think we’re not making nearly enough meaningful content for teens these days. I felt very seen as a kid by my media (well that’s not totally true as I was fat and the best we did for fat kids was tell them to wait and find a guy who likes brownies instead of celery) and I don’t think we’ve figured out how to talk about the pressures of social media in a real way. In this movie, everyone’s a mega-influencer. Yet they never use social media for any of the plot points. Have these two get closer by sending each other goofy snapchats, or demonstrate a leveling up of friendship when someone gets added to a Close Friends list. No one even gets a thirsty DM after a makeover! Wasted opportunities!

This movie, despite being written by the same person, misses the point that the first one was trying to make. And the original movie has a character very seriously say the line, “Check out the bo-bo’s on super freak". So, the bar was low and we still managed to trip over it is what I’m saying here. What a shame!