Lindsay Lohan scored a critical and box office success earlier this year with Mean Girls. Before that starring role, though, she gave millions of teenage girls reason to fawn over her in Disney's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.
Lindsay stars as Lola Cep or Mary as her birth certificate says in a story about starting over in high school. Lola's freshly divorced mom packs her and her 2 siblings up for a move from the lights of New York to suburbian New Jersey. Lola aiming for a career in theater sees this as the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone sixteen.
Upon arriving to her new high school, Lola quickly encounters a shy girl, Ella (Alison Pill), who just happens to be a fan of her favorite rock band and muse, Sidaurther. The two bond quickly with Lola almost as instantaneously making enemies with the rich preppy popular Carla Santini who's dad just happens to be the attorney for said rock band.
Director Sara Sugarman takes the story from the novel by Dyan Sheldon and focuses on the effect of Lola's growing trend towards bending the truth and the eventual consquences of dreaming just a bit too much. The supporting characters in the film help build a climax around these two girls who realize that the truth is always better than the drama filled exaggeration of high school.
I found the movie to be entertaining but without much merit in the end. Lohan's acting here is a bit underused with a film that is filled with more pop music and sap than real darkness that many feel in high school. Things hardly ever work out this way, then again this is Disney.
The Disc:
Disney brings this drama queen onto DVD with a disc that offers both a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen version and the standard full screen version. Although the widescreen version looks good, I always take note with these double versions as the space required always seems to take away from the quality of a higher bit version of either alone. Still the film looks good enough. Sounds on the film are quite well balanced, especially through the musical numbers in the film. The disc offers up THX certified English (Dolby Digital 5.1) and French tracks.
Extras on the disc begin with Commentary by director Sara Sugarman, writer Gail Parent, and producers Robert Shapiro & Jerry Leider. These guys really had fun here as their joy comes out in the commentary. It's one of those commentary tracks that can be hard to follow at times but still fun to listen to nonetheless.
Next up is an On the set featurette that offers the standard behind the scenes fluff that many productions seem to enjoy showing these days. Nothing here truly inspiring or surprising but still perhaps worth a watch.
Finally there's a music video starring Lohan that is beyond bizarre. She's a great actress but um she should keep her day job. There's a few deleted scenes and of course the upcoming videos.
bottom line:
I must admit I liked certain things about this film (really loved the uh-oh background music) but in the end it's nothing that's going to remain memorable.
3 out of 5
By - Brian Gray
