Another?! "Disney" film. . .
This is not your mother's Disney princess
Friday, February 20, 2004
BY LISA ROSE
Star-Ledger Staff
"Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" isn't a remake or a Cinderella story, which is encouraging, given Disney's tendency to recycle and reuse hoary fables for its tween entertainment.
Yet what promises to be a break from formula is more of the same mechanized wish fulfillment, just messier. The film is caught in a dead zone between the flashbulb daydreams of "Lizzie McGuire" and the character-building slapstick of "Freaky Friday." It's a pubescent fantasia without soul or purpose beyond positioning star Lindsay Lohan as the successor to Hilary Duff's throne.
"Drama Queen" does have literary pedigree. It is based on a popular young adult novel by Dyan Sheldon, but screenwriter Gail Parent (TV's "The Golden Girls") and director Sara Sugarman (a Hollywood newcomer) are less concerned with narrative cohesion than inventing opportunities for Lohan to showcase her multiple talents.
Lohan sings, dances, pratfalls, does everything short of twisting balloon animals, with a fervor that borders on desperation.
The actress, coming off this summer's smash "Freaky Friday" update, plays Lola, a 15-year-old Manhattan hipster who is uprooted to the Jersey'burbs by her single mom (Glenne Headly).
"Good-bye intellect and spiritual inspiration," Lola says wistfully before the family car cruises across the George Washington Bridge, which is the first of many slams against the Garden State's alleged cultural void.
Our heroine is not only a royal snob, she also tends to tell lies. Big ones. Instead of explaining her parents' divorce to her new friend, Ella (Alison Pill), Lola claims that her father died in a motorcycle accident. This tall tale and several other Walter Mitty moments are rendered in garish animation, a wayward attempt to give the movie a comic-book aura.
Lola's footlight ambitions lead her into a fierce battle with rival queenie Carla (Megan Fox) for the main part in a school production of "Pygmalion," modernized to "Eliza Rocks." Carol Kane, masquerading in schoolmarm spectacles, has some humorously ditsy scenes as the play's director (though her character's a bit of a fibber herself and never pays the consequences).
Just when you think you're in for "All About Eve" with bare midriffs and hip-hop dance moves, the movie switches gears, following Lola and Ella into New York, where they attempt to purchase scalped tickets to a concert featuring their favorite band, Sidarthur. With Toronto's Yonge Street standing in for Times Square, the teens scramble about, hair-sprayed and mini-dressed like street-walkers. They eventually cross paths with Sidarthur's hunky lead singer, Stu (Adam Garcia), who is on an alcoholic binge.
Although nothing naughty happens between the girls and the rocker, it is a rather lurid scenario for a Disney picture. It is doubly distressing later on when the film presents its version of the ultimate adolescent fantasy: Stu announcing in front of a crowd that Lola left her necklace at his place.
At least in "Lizzie McGuire," the title character lived the dream of pop stardom herself. In "Drama Queen," the reverie is all about being a stage-door sweetheart, even if only by innuendo.
Rating note: The film contains some strong language, skimpy outfits and alcohol abuse.