Post-Fassbinder mock soap opera (or closer to home, post-Waters) about a popular Alpha Omega Pi girl who, for her obligatory charity work in the Sorority-of-the-Year sweepstakes, mentors a "challenged athlete," falls in love with the beauty of his soul, and becomes a pariah in her charmed social circle. Well: a filmmaker (in this case a brace of filmmakers, co-directors Anthony R. Abrams and Adam Larson Broder) will have to make a film about something, but really the handicapped boy is no more than a symbol of "differentness," read into it whatever you please, whatever makes you comfortable, whatever makes you feel good about yourself. The villain is complacent conformity, though the satire of it is guilty of the very same thing. The satire of its opposite, if any, is guilty in the meantime of softness. (Todd Solondz's Storytelling comes readily to mind for contrast: both films feature a blunt-spoken black writing teacher in addition to a handicapped boy and a pitying girlfriend. But only Solondz's film plays no favorites.) And Christina Ricci, in a Reese Witherspoon blond flip, is far too quick and eager to get to her natural habitat of dark waters. She makes a most unpersuasive Pollyanna. Visually, the film is bright and peppy and pleasant to look at, and it coaxes out a chuckle or two. Hank Harris, Sam Ball, Dominique Swain, Brenda Blethyn. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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