She’s The Man (2006)

Starring Amanda Bynes

She’s the Man is a mildly funny and mildly enjoyable teen romance/comedy. Amanda Bynes plays Viola, a teen soccer player, who’s disappointed that the girl’s soccer team at her High School is disbanded. How can she play and prove she deserves a soccer scholarship at the college of her choice? Opportunity (of a sort) arises when her twin brother Sebastian tells her he’s going to London for two weeks to play some music gigs, instead of registering at a nearby high school for classes. So Viola, through some makeup magic, registers in his place and tries out for the boy’s soccer team.

This movie is loosely based on Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, in which another Viola pretends to be her brother Sebastian. But Shakespeare handled the material a lot better than this movie, which manages to miss Shakespeare’s wit and humor and talent for creating memorable characters who live on after his plays are over.

The problem with this movie is Amanda Byne’s performance. She’s a charming, funny, interesting girl as far as we can see in the movie. But her attempts to pretend to be a boy aren’t at all convincing. It’s tough to see the actors around her hitting their marks and speaking their lines, yet having to behave as if it’s not obvious that she isn’t a boy.

I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a decent movie. This movie, unfortunately, didn’t quite measure up. There were laughs, and there was a bit of romance that made sense. But the rest was a huge gulf of unrealized potential and missed opportunities.

When movies work, they become an organic whole. Nothing is wasted: every scene and every moment contributes to the movie. When they don’t work, it seems impossible to imagine how they could have worked. What if Bynes in this movie had done a better job? What if the script had been better? What if the director had controlled his actors and his scenes better? Alas, it’s too late. What we see is all we’ll get.

This movie is a must-see only for Amanda Bynes fans. Otherwise, check out a DVD of 10 Things I Hate About You. It’s also based on Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew), but it’s witty, funny, and moving in ways She’s the Man can only dream of.