She's The Man (2006)

Twelfth Night is one of my favourite, if not my actual, definitive favourite, Shakespeare play. And Amanda Bynes- though I haven't seen much of her work (though, when I think about it I've seen at least five of her films, there can't be many more can there?!) is one of my favourite young Hollywood stars. And I'll tell you why I like Amanda Bynes; because she is in the tradition of screwball-romantic-comedy actresses that everyone loved in the 80s, it is my strong belief that Amanda has it in her to be the next Goldie Hawn. 

This is what we need folks! Who doesn't love Overboard or House-sitter?! So She's the Man wasn't great, but Amanda was!! She was brilliant, I can't believe I used to hate her face, now i love everything about it! She's so expressive and so good at being goofy. I think I realised how good she was when I saw her take a small supporting role in Hairspray, she didn't have many lines but she made that character so likeable and funny- is it just me who though so? Back to the film; rhe rest of the cast were awful- except the cliche gay friend (I think he was Horatio!) who didn't have enough screen time- the love interest was extremely wooden, there was no transformation there really, he didn't learn to talk to women he just settled for Amanda- which is great for her if a hot bod is enough and she can put up with nervous jittery conversation about different kinds of cheeses...

Anyway, it was all I expected it to be, it was a giggle. The most fun was probably trying to figure out who was supposed to be who, it is very loosely based on Twelfth Night, ie the names are the same in some cases and that's IT, but there were some surprises to see it did sort of stick to the plot and that the creep didn't end up getting with the bitch, they just both stayed humiliated. (I'm guessing Malvolio and maybe the Fool? Or was the Headmaster the Fool? I think he was. He was excellent.)