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Directed By
Chris Columbus
Written By:
Larry Doyle
Cast:
Hayden Panettiere, Cynthia Stevenson, Samm Levine, Alan Ruck, Lauren London, Paul Rust, Lauren Storm, Shawn Roberts, Jack Carpenter, Andrea Savage, Maggie Ma, Brendan Penny, Pat Finn, Josh Emerson, Jared Keeso, Karyn Michelle Baltzer, Charlie Robson, Emily Tennant, Anna Mae Routledge, Marie Avgeropoulos, Darien Provost, Brandon Barton, John J. Gulayets
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I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)
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Movie Review by Zara 
August 2nd, 2009
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Everything that was remotely funny about this movie is in the trailer. If you're expecting it to be a comedy beyond that, you're going to be fairly disappointed.
I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER is fanciful and unrealistic at the same time that it's a good portrayal of what going through high school is like. While a Marine hotheaded boyfriend would never be able to embed a microwave into the wall of a kitchen, it IS plausible that he would be amped up on coke while terrorizing the guy who gave a speech proclaiming his love for Beth Cooper, head cheerleader and girl he really doesn't know.
The fact that some of the best poignant moments come from the sadness in Hayden Panettiere's face when Beth realizes that high school is her pinnacle and nothing else in life is going to get much better is what makes the movie barely tolerable. Most of the side characters in the movie are stereotypes and/or are written and/or acted badly. But Hayden actually - much to my surprise - is the driving force in the film. She is a girl who has had everyone hold her to a standard that she knew in her heart she could never live up to and she is the girl who spends her waking hours almost in a mission to destroy herself at as young of an age as possible. A James Dean syndrome personality, if you will.
I will say that I liked Alan Ruck as the dad to the lead geek and the scenes with him in them remind you of how he was the poor pathetic Cameron in FERRIS BUELER'S DAY OFF. There is a knowing in his eyes as he counsels his son, almost as if he is playing the grown-up Cameron who is giving his knowledge about life in the best way possible. That part of the film is also charming, if you have watched the other movie and see the connection there.
It could have been really good and it wasn't. It was marketed badly and the movie tanked at the box office, forcing me to search for a screen playing it only 3 weeks after its release because my 8 1/2 year old daughter wanted to watch it. But at least it gave us some food for thought to talk about.
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