Teenage Wasteland
The glut of gross-out movies aimed at young males is bad enough without having to subject girls to pap like Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. The Disney picture stars Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) as a new kid in a town.
When hippie Mom (Glenne Headly), inexplicably moves teenager Lola (Lohan) and her twin sisters from Manhattan to suburban New Jersey, Lola freaks out. Between hissy fits, she makes a friend (Alison Pill) who shares her worship of a rock band, she makes an enemy of the prettiest girl in school (foxy Megan Fox), and she imagines the most trivial affairs as mini-dramas. Director Sara Sugarman's first major feature is a poorly conceived vehicle for Lohan, who is stuck playing abrasive Lola, a girl who lies, cheats and steals.
What high school student Lola does not do, apparently, is study, but that doesn't stop her from landing the lead in a mangled musical production of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Lola's Boomer parents are more like pals. When they do surface, it's only as witness to their daughter's dangerous, irrational behavior. Parents who attempt proper parenting are predictably ridiculed.
Sugarman's anything-goes approach is burdened by Gail Parent's script, which is aimed at the most superficial girls. The excursions involve an alcoholic rock star (Adam Garcia), a dad with a Sheepdog, a kooky teacher (Carol Kane), singing and dancing and a climactic high school show with a Broadway budget.
Pity poor Sam (cast standout Eli Marienthal, American Pie), Lohan's love interest for a few short scenes. Their playfulness makes for the best moments in Confessions, which might have made a pleasant musical romance. Despite some clever sequences, Lohan emerges looking less than royal and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen winds up feeling like a half-hearted, humorless slumber party where everyone is asleep by ten o'clock.
When hippie Mom (Glenne Headly), inexplicably moves teenager Lola (Lohan) and her twin sisters from Manhattan to suburban New Jersey, Lola freaks out. Between hissy fits, she makes a friend (Alison Pill) who shares her worship of a rock band, she makes an enemy of the prettiest girl in school (foxy Megan Fox), and she imagines the most trivial affairs as mini-dramas. Director Sara Sugarman's first major feature is a poorly conceived vehicle for Lohan, who is stuck playing abrasive Lola, a girl who lies, cheats and steals.
What high school student Lola does not do, apparently, is study, but that doesn't stop her from landing the lead in a mangled musical production of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Lola's Boomer parents are more like pals. When they do surface, it's only as witness to their daughter's dangerous, irrational behavior. Parents who attempt proper parenting are predictably ridiculed.
Sugarman's anything-goes approach is burdened by Gail Parent's script, which is aimed at the most superficial girls. The excursions involve an alcoholic rock star (Adam Garcia), a dad with a Sheepdog, a kooky teacher (Carol Kane), singing and dancing and a climactic high school show with a Broadway budget.
Pity poor Sam (cast standout Eli Marienthal, American Pie), Lohan's love interest for a few short scenes. Their playfulness makes for the best moments in Confessions, which might have made a pleasant musical romance. Despite some clever sequences, Lohan emerges looking less than royal and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen winds up feeling like a half-hearted, humorless slumber party where everyone is asleep by ten o'clock.
