Drive Me Crazy

A teen flick: the question - cool or lame? This one concerns two high school seniors who think they've nothing in common beyond mutual unresolved prom date issues. Nicole (Hart) is a well-scrubbed blonde who serves on the prom committee, listens to bubblegum pop and fancies a fickle basketball jock; her neighbour Chase (Grenier) is a tousled rebel into alt-rock, subversion-lite and his rent-a-cause girlfriend, until she dumps him. The title of the source novel (How I Created My Perfect Prom Date by Todd Strasser) and the film's working title (Girl Gives Birth to Prom Date) suggest what unfolds, but obscure the film's relatively even-handedness, which tries ingenuously to broach the sensibilities of both parties and their peers. The plot lurches, the script's peg-legged, and the acting hits notes of staggering clumsiness. Not, like, totally lame, perhaps, but pretty sappy all the same.