Celeste Review

Celeste is a pixel-art 2D platformer of the brutal-but-fair kind popularised by the likes of Super Meat Boy. It takes the Amazon approach to videogame design: fail fast, fail often. You will die potentially thousands of times as you guide Madeline, a depressed young woman, up the titular mountain on a journey that’s as much self-discovery as a physical task.

Madeline can jump, dash and grip -- and that’s it. Keeping the control simple and intuitive allows developer Matt Makes Games to build what are essentially a series of increasingly fiendish puzzles. To conquer the mountain you’ll have to demonstrate problem-solving and planning as well as dexterity. Madeline’s limited grip keeps you from clinging to a ledge to plan your next moves, while a mid-air dash can only be used once between landing, demanding judicious usage. Floating crystals recharge both grip and dash; levels will ask you to chain dozens of precisely timed grips and dashes before Madeline feels firm ground beneath her feet again.

Death is also a crucial part of the Celeste experience. Madeline has no healthbar as such, and dies instantly when she touches an environmental hazard or falls off the map. The high level of precision needed to traverse Celeste Mountain means Madeline will die often. I burned through probably a hundred lives on certain areas, slowly identifying the right strategy. Thankfully, Madeline respawns almost instantly, ready to go again. There’s no fuss when Madeline croaks, like in Super Mario Bros for instance, no Try Again? button to press. Put it this way: if respawing took two seconds instead of one, Celeste could take a whole hour longer to complete. It’s great to play a game where the developers have focused so tightly on small but key gameplay features.

A typical room [Source: Torrents Games]

Your journey to the top of Celeste Mountain takes in eight different levels, from the city at the mountain’s foot, a spooky hotel, and some windswept, exposed mountain. Each level introduces a new mechanic to get to grips with. These range from the esoteric, such as the gelatinous oblongs that propagate your dash through and out the other side; to the more realistic, like mechanical trolleys that throw you across the screen or the strong winds that push and pull you in the exposed mountain level. Perhaps the cleverest are the blocks whose movement is linked to your dash, creating some tough predictive thinking puzzles. There’s a leap of faith element to it, dashing into previously empty space into which a block has suddenly arrived for you to grab onto.

Such elements ensure that Celeste always feels fresh and challenging in new ways. Level length is well judged -- over the course of a level you’ll master a mechanic and then move on to the next. Optional strawberries are dotted around levels, either on the main path or tucked away in hidden areas, representing extra-difficult routes. While rewarding to collect in their own right, the strawberries have a secondary function of allowing the player to expand playtime as they wish. This is doubly important given the repetition inherent in the game design and it’s easy to imagine a lesser developer getting this wrong and allowing it to slip into tedium. There were times when I was trying for a strawberry route and after a number of failures could feel my motivation slipping; I simply walked away from that challenge, no bother. That’s the story of Celeste in a nutshell: smart, invisible design decisions that combine for a special experience. (My one issue with the strawberries is that you’re told at the start they’re strictly for fun only -- but that’s not quite true. Madeline bakes a pie in the end cutscene, and the pie is better the more strawberries you collect (mine sucked). I was oddly annoyed by that.)

Madeline herself is an unusual videogame protagonist. She’s anxious, introverted, and depressed, and the plot of Celeste sees her struggling with her mental health. Some of Celeste’s best moments come when her anxieties take physical manifestations on screen. In a really effective sequence, a broken gondola triggers an anxiety attack, at which point you calm Madeline’s breathing by controlling the fluttering of a feather. The sound reduces in intensity and everything except the feather fades to black.

Celeste’s antagonist is Madeline’s alter-ego, a purple incarnation who appears at various points. Early on, she mimics your path around the level and kills Madeline if you allow her to be caught; later, she takes a more tentacle-like being in a boss-like encounter, firing lasers and other projectiles at you. In the spooky hotel, Madeline insists on helping the proprietor, Mr. Oshiro, despite him trying to trap her in the hotel; she only escapes when her less self-sacrificing alter ego intervenes. It’s a nicely written bit of metaphor. 

While I welcome attempts to write new kinds of protagonist, I unfortunately didn’t warm to Madeline at all. Madeline is stroppy, prickly, humourless and self-absorbed. It gets especially bad towards the game’s latter stages when she has some tediously sincere conversations about her mental health. Anxious and depressed people can often be paradoxically fun and vivacious so I feel there was room to make her more likeable. I found I had no reason to believe in the essential goodness that the game wishes you to see in her, and thus couldn’t particularly root for her. I also didn’t like the hand-drawn cartoon versions of her that appear in cut-scenes, which remind me of bad Flash-era Newgrounds platformers, and even her name set bad-naming bells ringing (I changed it to Mads). Celeste’s side characters aren’t much better. You encounter another climber, Theo, who appears regularly on your climb. Theo is a Seattleite who landed his dream job but cracked under pressure and speaks in the same annoying kind of way Madeline does. His calling card is taking selfies with Madeline without asking. 

Not super into this aesthetic

But that’s really the only negative. Other things worth mentioning are the soundtrack, which is rich, dynamic, and all-too catchy. And I’ve only lightly touched on just how much extra content there is. Besides the strawberries, which are a whole challenge unto themselves, there are also B-Sides to collect, which unlock ultra-difficult versions of the main levels and introduce advanced techniques. I took about 10 hours to complete the main story, but the collectibles could easily double that or more. And, satisfyingly, I still have the motivation to jump back in (comparing favourably to last week’s Okami, which I haven’t been back to).

In sum, then, industry-leading design choices in terms of movement, pacing, and level-design make Celeste a clear standout in its genre.  

NOTE: 08/02/2021

1) Subsequent to this review I continued with the optional extras...and my total play time ballooned from nine hours to fifty-five-plus. And I still haven't completed it. I mentioned B-Sides, but there are also C-Sides and even (I believe) D-Sides, making it clear that the main story should be regarded as only a small part of Celeste.

In addition, there is the whole Farewell DLC package (bundled with the Switch version), which is longer and harder than the actual main game. In Farewell the difficulty is cranked to insane levels, such that it represents a switch of audience focus from relatively casual gamers to hardcore Celeste fans with an almost-limitless desire for punishment. While I welcome the extended challenge, Farewell is a bit much. Yes, Celeste does boast extensive accessibility options, and yes, the game does take great pains to assure you that toggling said options by no means counts as failure...but as a fully able-bodied person who has persevered though countless brutal challenges, enabling accessibility options to me would feel like throwing in the towel.

It was tedium more than frustration that got the better of me eventually: About 3/4 of the way through Farewell I found I lacked the energy to tackle yet another mammoth level. I couldn't get back into the required determined, analytic mindset. Naturally, I then moved onto a much more forgiving, casual gaming experience -- Dark Souls.

2) Not long after publishing this review, Matt of Matt Makes Games came out as a transwoman and changed name to Maddy. She also announced that Madeline is also cannonically trans. You know, I think I knew all along. What vibe was I detecting? Not sure. The announcement also means that Madeline is much closer to a direct representation of Maddy herself, making me feel a bit weird about my criticism of Madeline's character. But, I stand by it.

1917 Review

Ok, I'll admit it: I hate long takes. By that I mean, more specifically, uninterrupted tracking shots, sometimes called "one-ers". Impressive logistical feats that require meticulous planning, good one-ers, used sparingly and done well as in Children of Men and Goodfellas, can heighten immersion and tension. Their technical difficulty means a successful example is held up as the sign of ultimate filmmaking skill. But that makes it a target in itself; the result is sub-par filmmakers overextending themselves and doing it badly, hurting the quality of their films.

The hallmarks of a bad one-er -- constant movement, conspicuous blocking (the movement of actors in front of the camera) and wonky angles -- serve only to draw attention to the artifice of cinema. A bad long take suggests an authorial presence desperate to prove its directorial skill, and are thus inherently immature, appealing mainly to fresher film students.

Cinema in the last couple of decades has featured a minor subplot of directors trying to one-up each other with bigger, better and more complex tracking shots. Alfonso Cuaron set the bar high with the aforementioned Children of Men, which features three extended one-ers. Alejandro Iñarritu, the worst offender, has since produced two films ostensibly comprising a single long take, the irritating Birdman and The Revenant. Sam Mendes has been dipping his toe in, notably the Day of the Dead sequence in Spectre, which to be fair is a pretty good example.

Mendes upped the ante earlier this year with First World War piece 1917. The film is presented as two continuous takes (a "two-er" if you like), with one cut mid-way through signalling a jump ten-or-so hours ahead. The scale of 1917 means Mendes can consider the ante successfully upped compared to the claustrophobic Birdman. Well done Sam, pat on the back.

Unfortunately, Mendes' determination to prove his skill scuppered what could have been a decent film. It is really mystifying why Mendes chose to tell his story in such a way. I guess he thought it seemed cool, an impressive technique befitting an impressive setting, but the approach causes a litany of problems. Mendes struggles to reconcile a two-hour run-time with events that span perhaps 16 hours.

Mendes' long takes create a confusing topology. After the plane crash, we encounter an entire squadron who have just silently appeared a few yards from what was presented as a deserted bit of map. Schofield and Baker were supposed to be one a lone mission in a race against time; how, then, have they been overtaken by a whole troop on their way somewhere else? Further, it undercuts the preceding scenes, which built tension on the pair's isolation and potential lurking Germans. No worries, here's a big truck full of unbothered men. The impression is an inadvertent surrealism, supernaturalism even. 

Distances are warped, too, with Schofield's ride in the back of the truck seeming to cover no more than a quarter-mile or so. His dip in the river appears to cover maybe 100 metres. Filmmakers, generally speaking, work hard to establish and maintain a cohesive geography by using establishing shots and following certain rules. And as an audience, we are pretty well-trained when it comes to mentally tracking film-space. But Mendes' one-ers trample all over that: it is simply incredibly obvious that little physical space has been covered either in the truck or in the river, let alone the purported nine miles that comprises Schofield and Baker's mission. Immersion is constantly broken.

What's exasperating is that all of this was avoidable by simply choosing to shoot in a "normal" way. Maybe reserve long takes for a few shorter sequences, such the bunker scene or when the first wave goes over the top. Then you can use cuts to allow time to elapse legibly and establish a cohesive geography. And it would make it more, not less, immersive, as you would not be reminded every few minutes that there's a whole team frantically running and ducking about and moving bits of scenery behind the camera.

That being said, 1917 is fitfully enjoyable. The plane crash is startling and the night-time street shootout, starkly illuminated by harsh flares, is arresting. Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden and, in particular, Benedict Cumberbatch are engaging in the limited screen time they get. But like the sucking mud of a shell crater, 1917 never escapes Mendes' overbearing directorial presence. 

Okami Review

Okami is a 3D action adventure game developed by Clover Studios and published by Capcom in 2006, originally for PS2 but since then ported to all major platforms -- including the Switch, on which I played it. The player controls a wolf-god called Amaterasu as she attempts to release a fictionalised Japan from the clutches of an evil god.

Most notable about Okami is its cartoonish (but not cartoony) cel-shaded visual design, which takes inspiration from Japanese art. Early versions of Okami had a more traditional 3D action game aesthetic, but the game suffered from performance issues. Necessity being the mother of invention, the developers switched to a less graphically intensive cel-shading approach, which both solved the performance issues and provided Okami’s most memorable feature.

Before and after of Okami's art direction [Source: Wikipedia]

Cel-shaded games often have been cartoony, such as Borderlands, or taken direct inspiration from comics -- see XIII and the “BAM!” and “BOOM!” that accompany its gunshots and explosions. Okami decidedly isn’t like that, borrowing instead from the Japanese Classical Yamato-e style of artwork. Maybe it would be snobbish to say this is somehow better than Borderlands’ and XIII’s 20th century American comic inspiration, but Okami’s visuals are certainly unique among videogames, and refreshing for it.

Clover Studios leant into Okami’s new artistic aesthetic by adding a unique and complementary gameplay feature: the Celestial Brush. The Celestial Brush allows the player to defeat enemies by turning the screen into a canvas and painting lines and patterns on it. A horizontal line forms a slash attack, an inverted “Q” shape drops a bomb, and a loop produces a powerful wind, among many others. The system also has non-combat uses, such as drawing lily pads to cross bodies of water, fixing bridges, and restoring leaves to trees; and is incorporated into the storyline in a satisfying way.

On the PS2 original the brush mechanic could be cumbersome, slowing down combat due to the ponderous nature of drawing with an analogue stick. On the Switch, however, the mechanic is revolutionised by the device’s touchscreen, allowing the player to draw brushstrokes as quickly as it takes to swipe a finger. I had some issues getting the game to recognise my brushstrokes and sometimes it struggled with interfacing the 2D canvas with the 3D game world, but overall it’s a great feature that enriches combat and exploration.

Celestial Brush in action [Source: PCMag]

Okami’s single-player campaign is its only game mode: no co-op, online play or anything else. Thankfully, it is massive. I finished it in about 35 hours, a satisfying length, and only realised after completion that I’d missed huge chunks of side quests, minigames and collectibles, which would have added another couple-dozen hours. Okami’s storyline, divided into three arcs, is a bit haphazard. The first arc is a well-realised, self-contained story about defeating an evil eight-headed being that preys on a small village. The second and third arcs see the scope of the story expand considerably but it becomes less cohesive. Friends and foes come and go in a blur as the plot lurches from one catastrophe to the next.

Clover’s desire to tell a sweeping epic folktale saddles Okami with an almost crippling quantity of dialogue, which is by far the game’s biggest flaw. There is simply far, far too much talking. Some can be sped-up by holding (A) but plot-critical dialogue trundles slowly across the screen and lasts for minutes at a time. You can skip it entirely but doing so risks missing key info. The whole script needs a severe edit: Even talking to one of the games many merchants, for instance, produces about ten lines of pointless chitchat before you are offered to buy something. Compounding matters is that there are really only two good characters among dozens -- Susano, a doofus warrior from an old bloodline, and Waka, a mysterious French-speaking prophet whose role as good or evil is uncertain until the end.

Amaterasu, the wolf you play as, does not speak; instead your talking is done by a little forest sprite called Issun. Issun, unfortunately, suffers terribly from bad writing. Not only are his colloquialisms annoying, but he’s also a pervert. Despite being a notionally sex-less story about a wolf fighting monsters, Okami still finds a way to include a teenagerish sexism that so often marrs ‘00s videogames. Most of the women characters in Okami wear revealing clothes; one in particular who plays a major role in the second arc is referred to by Issun as the “busty babe” and has her own boob physics. Issun is repeatedly and groan-inducingly awestruck by the game’s five or six beauties and the game hits a low point when you have to steal the robe of a princess bathing under a waterfall. It’s disappointing that the script and story don’t match the maturity of its art direction.

In terms of gameplay, Okami is overtly inspired by the Legend of Zelda series. The player steadily unlocks new areas that it is free to explore and contains multitudes of discoverables. The game’s main plot events take place in dungeon-style areas, and these are varied and interesting, although not matching the sophistication of the best Zelda dungeons. Each introduces one of thirteen Celestial Brush techniques, which Amaterasu works to unlock across the game. About half are environmental techniques that help you traverse and restore nature to the world; and half are fighting techniques. Amaterasu’s use of the Brush techniques are limited by an ink-o-meter, preventing the player from spamming battles with them.

In typical Capcom fashion Okami features a well-developed combat system. It combines various weapon types, unlockable tricks, dodge and block mechanics, combo bonuses and single-use power-ups to rich effect. Monster encounters take place exclusively in circular arenas that spring up around you (boss battles occur in larger designated arenas, but they're still circular). Enemies are varied, from the relatively straightforward imps of the first arc to tough elemental creatures of the later stages. Unfortunately, the fighting isn’t particularly difficult and I was never required to develop my skills much beyond hammering attack and learning a few enemy-specific Celestial Brush techniques. I completed Okami without dying once, in fact, leaving a lingering sense of waste that mastering the deep combat is ultimately inessential.

Fighting an imp in a virtual arena [Source: Siliconera]

Dialogue aside, the pacing of Okami is excellent. Its missions are engrossing and the player's attention to the main quest is constantly tested by innumerable side quests, collectables and minigames. With each save the game tracks total play-time, and I would find myself astonished when it would inform me that another 40 minutes of my life had slipped frictionlessly by. I regret ploughing determinedly through the main quest; once you enter the final area your opportunity to explore Okami’s world is locked off. The biggest miss was a series of combat arenas that pit you against wave after wave of increasingly tough monsters -- I saw none of that. I also missed all-but one of the eleven secret Celestial Brush techniques and all the non-essential special items. On the one hand it’s irritating that so much material is superfluous, and at times Okami even discourages it: in one area full of side quests you’re explicitly told not to forget about your mission; and at a certain point in the plot when the game wants to create a sense of urgency it bars you from taking on side quests. But on the other, I accept I could have been more curious, basically.

All told, Okami is if not quite the all-time classic it’s sometimes feted to be, then at least among the finest examples of PS2-era action adventure games. Tighter plotting and writing and difficulty would elevate it close to Jak II levels of excellence, but for the £7 I paid on the Switch Store I’m satisfied I got more than my money’s worth. 

Clueless Soup: One Man's Journey Into the Heart of the '90s Teen Comedy Boom

In 1995, Amy Heckerling’s Clueless was released, revitalising the teen-comedy genre for the ‘90s. Clueless was a reasonable commercial and critical success but had an outsized impact on its genre. For the half-decade or so following its release, cinemas were flooded with imitators, to the extent that teen comedies released in that five-year period, of which there were dozens, can be more accurately described as being part of the Clueless genre.

The recipe for what I’m going to call “Clueless Soup” consists of nine key ingredients. Various Chefs du Cinema (aka directors) either stuck closely to the recipe or put their own spin on the soup, adding or subtracting ingredients. Despite the relative straightforwardness of the recipe, results varied wildly. The Clueless Soup recipe is thus:

Clueless Soup

Ingredients:

1 work of classic literature
1-3 budding stars
A sprinkling of rich teens
A makeover
Soundtrack comprising recent pop/indie hits
A dash of female empowerment

Method:

Chuck together in a Californian high school, season with zingy one-liners and generous laughs to taste, and simmer for 90 minutes.

Note: this recipe has a use-by date of December 2001, after which the ingredients may grow stale.

*

Films made according to the Clueless Soup recipe include: 10 Things I Hate About You; Cruel Intentions; Drop Dead Gorgeous, She’s All That, Whatever It Takes; Never Been Kissed; Get Over It; Princess Diaries; Bring It On; She’s The Man; Election; and Legally Blonde.

Some, such as 10 Things I Hate About You, were perfect (re)creations, nailing the ingredients, flavour and textures of Clueless Soup; others, such as Whatever It Takes, followed the recipe closely but nevertheless cooked up a disaster; and others, such as Legally Blonde, used an incomplete set of stale ingredients but created something flavoursome anyway.

In need of a project during lockdown, I decided to gorge myself on a banquet of Clueless Soups with the goal of becoming a true connoisseur of the dish. Ingredients highlighted in bold throughout. But first, Clueless itself.

Paul Rudd's first film and he's not aged a day since

Clueless (1995) - A+


Like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Godfather and Psycho, Clueless is a genre-defining classic. Not the first of its genre, but the film that crystallises its genre’s key elements and becomes its point of reference.

Clueless draws on Jane Austen’s Emma, a novel whose themes and moods still resonate today. There’s something fitting about adapting old books for an audience of teens who are probably trudging through said book in English class themselves. Of course, adapting a classic for a young audience is fundamentally dorky, and brings to mind your English teacher going, “Twelfth Night’s supposed to be funny!” to a sea of blank faces. But equally, done right, as it is here (and elsewhere in this project), adaptation can bring out and dust off the universal themes that made the novel in question a classic in the first place.

Like Emma, Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone in her breakout role) is a bored, headstrong, wealthy girl who uses her position near the top of the social hierarchy to meddle in the lives of others. Regency England translates well to a Californian high school setting, both being governed by rigid social hierarchies, rules and codes. After taking newcomer Tai (Brittany Murphy) under her wing and giving her a makeover, Cher discovers there are limits to her influence and that her judgement is clouded by preconceptions; that she is, in fact, clueless.

But it’s not the storyline that makes Clueless a classic, rather the foundation that allows Amy Heckerling to build its iconic aesthetic. Clueless’ immensely quotable script is a gem, especially the early scenes that sketch out Cher’s character. From her debate class monologues (“It does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty!”) to her fashion critiques (“She’s a full-on Monet!”), the script keeps on giving.

Clueless is also a jab at conventions and preconceptions. Grades are the measure of intelligence; girlishness equates to stupidity: these are the twin themes that Clueless dismantles.

Cher isn't smart in a conventional sense, so instead of studying, she sets about improving her average grades by manipulating her teachers. By understanding motivations, interpersonal relations, and social capital she talks various teachers into bumping up her grades. Cher’s dad, a rough and ready hard-nosed litigator who represents a kind of real-world smarts, is thrilled, and is ultimately more impressed by her novel approach than he would have been otherwise.

Soft skills are equally valid -- if not more -- as forms of intelligence in the workplace as educational attainment. After all, most jobs only require a small amount of hard knowledge. Communicating, influencing, and improvising are the bread and butter of work. And that’s what Cher represents.

In the same way, Clueless itself is a response to the kind of consensus that resulted in the IMDb top 100 containing almost entirely serious-minded, brooding films catering to a guy-ish sensibility. It’s not that they’re bad -- at all -- it’s more that the consensus is so overwhelming it suffocates. Clueless’ aesthetic is exactly the kind to be passed over by the IMDb crowd as a superficial pleasure for an unserious audience: colourful, quippy, feminine, and occupied with love, relationships, and fashion. But it’s still quote-unquote proper cinema, with a rich filmic language, memorable characters, an irrepressible sense of humour, and something to say.

And it’s that impulse -- exploring a neglected, often maligned corner of cinema -- that drives this project. That, and spending time with my girlfriend during lockdown. Onto the rest...

Not my fave

Whatever It Takes (2000) - F


The worst possible start. I had high hopes: Whatever It Takes is adapted from Cyrano de Bergerac, which to be honest I hadn’t heard of but it sounds serious; features early roles for now-big names such as James Franco and Aaron Paul; and features all the classic high-school trappings. Unfortunately, Mark Schwahn, who wrote and produced this thing and shoulders the blame, concocted something hateful and poisonous. I had to turn it off about a third of the way in.

Anyone with any doubts about the validity of the feminist movement should watch this appalling film. The set up is this: James Franco’s jock and Shane West’s dweeb team up to help the other lay the other’s respective closest female friend. Outright manipulation is presented as romantic japes and bullying is presented as a legitimate dating tactic. The girls are 2D and the boys are gross. One particularly awful scene has West’s character pay the janitor so he can sneak into the girls’ locker room to perv, and it’s POV shot makes you feel like a pervert too. I don’t want this project to be just lamely pointing out ways old films don’t meet today’s standards but it’s unavoidable with this one. Thank god we're beyond this now. Puke.

Your Sarah Rose Cosmetics Mount Rose American Teen Princess Pageant winner!

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) - B+


Up second was Drop Dead Gorgeous, which deviates from the recipe in that it’s not an adaptation and it’s not set in a high school, or even in California. Reviews upon its release were mixed but its idiosyncrasies have earned it a cult following in the years since.

A mockumentary about a Minnesotan beauty pageant marred by fatalities, Drop Dead Gorgeous has a stunning cast that includes Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Brittany Murphy, and Amy Adams. Various moms and aunts get juicy roles, too. A deadpan and sometimes absurdist sense of humour is complemented by a bizarre plot that doesn’t conclude at its seemingly natural end point. The judges of the beauty pageant, including an old pervert (a recurring theme here…) and a “retard” are the film’s weak points -- none of their lines land. This soup deviates from the recipe significantly but is nonetheless extremely enjoyable, in an unexpected way.

You could never

10 Things I Hate About You (1999) - A+


The yin to Clueless’s yang, 10 Things is a classic entry in the teen comedy genre. Where Clueless is clever, original, and empowering, 10 Things is traditional, romantic, and gooey. Adapting The Taming of the Shrew, Heath Ledger’s misfit Patrick is recruited by slick Joey, who in turn is recruited by Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), to woo Julia Stiles’ Kat, an outspoken rebel.

The schmaltz is heavy but strong set pieces, including a famous stadium serenade scene and the titular sonnet, well-written characters and a dreamy Heath Ledger in his breakout role keep things moving.

With each and every key ingredient present, 10 Things I Hate About You is a true gourmet soup.

You can't sit with us

Never Been Kissed (1999) - F


21 Jump Street for paedophiles, it’s hard to overstate how imbued Never Been Kissed is with noncery. Josie, Drew Barrymore’s socially-stunted 25-year-old copyeditor at the Chicago Sun-Times, is sent by an eccentric boss back to high school to write some undercover investigative journalism. There, Josie hopes to make amends for her own cringe-inducing high school years but finds herself struggling for acceptance once more.

All the main characters are paedophiles. Josie’s hottie tottie English teacher falls in love with her, not knowing she’s an adult, after she gives a particularly affecting reading of Shakespeare (English is all she’s good at). Josie herself fancies the school’s hottest boy; and then, out of nowhere, Josie’s brother enrols at the school in a poorly explained attempt to revive dreams of playing professional baseball and begins noncing as well.

The most bizarre bit is the English teacher’s dilemma over whether to follow his (adult) girlfriend of five years to New York (an eminently sensible decision) or to stay to nonce on one of his students. It’s presented as a legitimate choice, and we’re expected to agree with his eventual decision to try to fuck a weird child. He feels betrayed, rather than relieved, when he finds out Josie’s true age, and the tension in the final scene rests on whether he can overcome that feeling of betrayal.

Josie comes clean after she’s anointed Prom Queen, outing her brother as a paedo in the process, and then writes a hand-wringing piece for her paper where the message is, simply, plus ça change -- high school is still high school (remember, she graduated just seven years previously). You can tell we’re supposed to think it’s great because in a voiceover Josie reads it in an overwrought drama-school voice. The piece, which ends with an invitation for her nonce teacher to kiss her at a baseball game, is for some reason rapturously received as groundbreaking journalism, and the baseball game is packed. It’s hard to think of a more ridiculously plotted film.

Not funny, not an adaptation, and no breakout performances (although the soundtrack is alright) -- don’t even bother with this one.

It should be illegal to be that blonde!

Legally Blonde (2001) B-


Legally Blonde arrived a bit late to the party, being released in 2001, and is set in college, not high school, as well as in professional legal settings. And while it’s technically an adaptation (of a novel released that same year), it’s not an adaptation in the way we’re looking for here. As such, it just about makes the shortlist based on its unashamed female empowerment angle; Cher Horowitz being an obvious inspiration for Elle; and credits for Reese Witherspoon, this project’s leading actor, and Kirsten Smith, its leading screenwriter (Smith also wrote 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s The Man).

You can draw a straight line between Cher Horowitz and Elle Woods (Witherspoon). Legally Blonde could be “Cher Goes to College”. Like Cher, Elle glides along on a wave of naivety, looks, and indefatigable well-meaningness, which is fun. But while Cher eventually has a personal reckoning after running into the limits of her ability to win friends and influence people, Elle just keeps on being Elle and the universe keeps on rewarding her.

Legally Blonde isn’t clear whether Elle’s actually smart: her admission to Harvard Law is partly a result of doing well in the exam but also partly a result of doing her entrance video in a bikini. Likewise, her success in the climactic hearing partially hinges on her having the lawyer’s instinct to pull on an overlooked thread in the plaintiff’s story, but it also hinges on some obscure piece of perm maintenance knowledge. Elle’s victory reminds me of how Dev Patel won out in Slumdog Millionaire -- by luckily knowing things. It’s a funny scene, but you can’t build a career as a lawyer by knowing about hair maintenance.

Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe I need to cut it loose from Clueless and the rest and read it as a straightforward girlpower film. Ninety minutes of Elle’s outrageous femininity swatting aside established society. But to me, that reading is too one-note.

Besides that, Legally Blonde is too much of a big studio production, with enough budget to cast the likes of Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, and Jenifer Coolidge in supporting roles.

Princess Diaries (2001) - C


Gawky San Fran teen Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway, in her breakout role) finds out she’s first in line to the throne of Genovia, a small country somewhere near Greece. Her grandmother, Julie Andrews, together with a bodyguard and a stylist, turn ugly loser Anne Hathaway into glossy princess Anne Hathaway.

Unfortunately, that’s basically it. The conceit is that Mia negotiates a two-week window to see if the proverbial shoes fit, so all the action happens within San Fran, either at high school, the consulate, or in a limousine. Given the potential of the premise, this seems restrictive and the typical high school tropes -- prom, pining after the hot boy -- felt particularly wearisome. And most of the run-time is given to Mia resolving her internal conflict, leading to a tediously static plot. I found it hard to buy into her desire to cling to her old life, too, considering she seems more comfortable around her queen grandmother anyway than among her peers at school.

Like Legally Blonde, Princess Diaries is too much of a big studio production with a broader audience in mind to rate highly here, and lacks the scrappy outsiderness that characterises the best films of the genre.

I'd vote for Reese tbh

Election (1999) A-


Had this pencilled in as a loose fit at best and was prepared for a disappointing experience. And to be honest, it is a loose fit: While it’s set in a high school and co-stars Reese Witherspoon, Election is as much about the adults’ perspectives, including Matthew Broderick’s ethically compromised but morally upright teacher, as the kids’.

However, I was absolutely not disappointed: Election is beautifully balanced, intelligent, funny, empathetic and satisfying -- it deserves a much deeper review than this. The film’s four main characters all have well-plotted, interlocking arcs, and even its antagonist, Witherspoon’s swotty Tracy Flick, is treated sympathetically. Highly recommended as a standalone film, but not necessarily as a teen movie.

(Also, unable to find this film anywhere, I eventually just typed “Election Full Movie” into Google and found a perfect quality stream on some random website -- a joyful experience in itself. Watch it here https://hdbest.net/election-1999-399.html)

The final film in the Reese Witherspoon extended universe

Cruel Intentions (1999) B-


Yet another Spring 1999 release (alongside Election, Never Been Kissed, and 10 Things I Hate About You -- truly this project’s goldrush), Cruel Intentions is a strong Clueless Soup albeit with some sour notes.

Cruel Intentions is adapted from Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th Century classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses -- the strongest source text of any film here -- the story of a war of love between two bored French aristocrats. Pre-revolutionary France is replaced by high-society teens in New York; Valmont (the scheming pair keep their French names) is played by Ryan Phillipe and Merteuil by Sarah Michelle Gellar. The piece’s ingenue, Cecile, is played by -- who else? -- Reese Witherspoon.

The strength of the story is hampered by bad writing. Valmont really is a complete cunt in this film, to the point that it’s hard to care when everything goes tits up for him, and he has a few untasteful lines to boot. (It’s a shame they removed original-Valmont’s “It’s beyond my control”, delivered so well by John Malkovich in the 1988 version.) Phillipe is also not in the same class of actor as Gellar and Witherspoon. Further, the importance of reputation in the plot of Les Liaisons Dangereuses doesn’t translate particularly well to the New York setting, meaning the stakes are somewhat confused.

What’s interesting about Cruel Intentions is the obviousness with which its producers have Clueless Soup in mind without quite getting it right -- aside from not being a comedy, Cruel Intentions has almost all the ingredients. This comes through most clearly in its soundtrack; a classical score was discarded late in production in favour of an alternative pop soundtrack that comes across as lazy. The almost all-British line-up features mainstream hits from the likes of Blur, The Verve, Placebo, and Fatboy Slim. The songs are so obvious that there’s no rewarding sense of “ooh I know this song!” -- everyone knows Bittersweet Symphony.

Overall, though, the plot, cast, and general vibe make Cruel Intentions a respectable entry in the canon.

Channing scores on his debut

She’s The Man (2006) - B


To be honest, while I’d noted that She’s The Man was adapted from Twelfth Night in my initial research, I’d forgotten that fact by the time I got round to watching it. One difficulty of this project has been how extraordinarily unmemorable most of these films’ titles are. They’re all like, “You’re It, Girl!”, “He’s So Into You”, or “Take It All” and they all blend together. By the time I watched it, She’s The Man might as well have been about anything.

So halfway through the film's cross-dressing storyline I was thinking, these love triangles are remarkably intricate! In it, Amanda Bynes’ Violet assumes her twin brother’s identity to prove to her high school soccer coach that girls can be as good as boys. Violet falls for her new roommate (Channing Tatum in his breakthrough role) who falls for attractive classmate Olivia who in turn falls for boy-Violet. Real Violet fancies Tatum, so boy-Violet tries to engineer their coupling up. The premise is fantastic, frankly, and if you can suspend your disbelief over how obviously boy-Violet isn’t a boy* then She’s The Man has a lot to offer.

Counting against it is its release date, 2006 being a full five years after any other film in this list. However scriptwriter Kirsten Smith (10 Things I Hate About You and Legally Blonde) ensures She’s The Man has nineties bones.

*Sadly, one of the few people who couldn’t get over it was Bynes herself, who entered a six-month depression after seeing herself as a boy.

Shipman v Isis

Bring It On (2000) - B


The definitive cheerleading film, Bring It On sees Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) struggling to lead the Rancho Carne High cheer squad to a sixth successive national title. In her way are East Compton Clover High, a talented but poor black/hispanic school from inner city LA, led by Gabrielle Union’s Isis, in her breakout role. In some ways, Bring It On is Dodgeball told from the perspective of Globo Gym.

The dynamic between the two schools is potent: Shipman discovers her school’s success is based on stealing routines from Clover High, who perennially can’t afford the entry fee for nationals. Bring It On is the first and only film of this project to probe the socioeconomics of the genre’s affluent backdrop. Stricken by guilt over her school's history of blatant exploitation, Shipman gets her dad to write a cheque to cover Clover’s fees -- but Isis refuses it and launches a fundraising appeal within the black community instead. This seems a pretty smart summary of how both the Democrats and Republicans fail black communities, with Shipman throwing corporate guilt money at the problem and Shipman’s predecessor (called “Big Red”) not giving one solitary fuck.

It’s an interesting move to make the rival school a likeable underdog, and Union upstages Dunst to such an extent that Isis actually seems like the main character in an alternate-reality version of Bring It On. The film’s internal commentary on socioeconomic relations spills out into a meta-textual discussion about why Bring It On is about the white rich school in the first place. Clover’s story is deeper than Rancho Carne’s forgettable internecine cheerleader squabbling.

Keeping Bring It On from becoming a classic of the genre are inconsistent laughs, a few scenes notwithstanding, and Dunst, who gives it a go but ultimately seems like a backup choice for when Reese Witherspoon is unavailable or too expensive.

Sidenote: Everything in this film is so oddly named. Torrance Shipman sounds like a serial killer name, Rancho Carne means meat ranch (a comment on the fuckability of cheerleaders maybe?????), Clover High is incongruously Irish-themed, and Isis has picked up certain...connotations since. Also, no character says the film’s title in full -- just “bring it”...annoying!

The only good bit. Sorry

Get Over It (2001) - D


One quirk of all these films is that, with a few notable exceptions, the women leads have ended up as stars while the men have struggled to rise out of obscurity. Maybe they’re harder to cast being at that awkward phase of development, I don’t know. Either way, it’s baffling that Ben Foster was cast in Get Over It’s leading role given his acting style is to move as few facial muscles as possible. He’ll go whole scenes only minutely moving a few lip muscles. Unsurprisingly, this does not make him easy to warm to.

Compounding matters is Shane West, already in my bad books because of Whatever It Takes, who stars opposite Foster. His character puts on an English accent for reasons unexplained and maintains it until the credits roll. Shortlist did this helpful guide to the worst British accents on film, and while West is missing, I’d put him second-worst after Josh Hartnett. Perhaps the accent is supposed to be a joke...perhaps...but the fact he maintains it for the whole thing makes me wonder if the few lines of dialogue mocking his accent weren’t hastily recorded reshoots in a desperate attempt to cover for it.

It doesn’t stop there. Poor Colin Hanks, also in Whatever It Takes, is ill-fitting and wooden as ever and noticeably bad even as a side character. The obvious nepotism makes it worse.

On the other hand, Kirsten Dunst, an absolute movie-making machine at the time, also features. And she’s good -- too good, in fact, such that you have to question the wisdom of setting her quality threshold as low as this, especially when she’s only got the fourth best role. Dunst featured in four pictures a year from 1998 to 2001, and nearly always in starring roles. Know your worth, girl!

Anyway, the plot: Ben Foster’s Burke gets dumped by his first love and he is determined to get her back -- which involves joining the cast of his high school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Burke isn’t a natural actor so struggles when he ends up cast as Lysander...ironic! I think the plot is supposed to also be a loose retelling of the play, but it’s different enough to be confusing. There’s a rivalry, and a girl, and that’s about it.

Last one!

She’s All That (1999) - A


Another consistent thread running through these films is their ability to defy my expectations. They’ve nearly all been markedly better -- or worse -- than anticipated. As the final Clueless Soup, I was worried She’s All That would end this project on a sour note. The title -- the most generic teen-comedy name of the lot -- some boring-looking lead actors, and a drab DVD cover didn’t scream classic. It would have been a real shame to end this thing with a Whatever It Takes.

Well thank God, because She’s All That is all that. It has a sleazy-ish conceit: After getting dumped by his popular girlfriend, Freddie Prinze Jr.’s prom king in waiting, Zach, takes a bet with his best bud Dean (Paul Walker) that he can turn any girl into the prom queen. Dean picks Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook), an outsider artist. Irritated and perplexed by his initial advance, Laney blows Zach off.

But fair play to Zach, he really commits to her, thankfully casting aside the prospect of a heartless manipulation plotline and thus diverting from the source text, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (in which a phoenetician teaches a cockney to speak and act like a lady). The romance that develops between Zach and Laney is surprisingly tender; of all the romance plotlines this is perhaps the one I felt most vested in. Good-naturedness is She’s All That’s defining tone.

Robin van Persie from the eyebrows up, Chris Evans from the nose down, Freddie Prinze Jr. proves a great leading man. The insanely petite Rachael Leigh Cook is plausible both as the overlooked girl and the princess -- a difficult balance to strike. But it’s the supporting cast, packed with future stars, that really elevates She’s All That to something memorable. Matthew Lillard puts in an amazingly goofy, physical performance as the second-rate actor that steals Zach’s girlfriend; Keiran Culkin as Laney’s little brother is in most of the funniest scenes; Paul Walker is solid as Zach’s jacked best friend-cum-rival; and flippin’ Usher is in this as the school DJ. Lil’ Kim, Anna Pacquin, Gabrielle Union and Dulé Hill also appear. The only adult character of note, Laney’s dad (Kevin Pollack), is well-written and well acted. It’s just good work all round from everybody.

And with a soundtrack that made a hit out of Kiss Me (and also features a deep cut from Black Eyed Peas’ debut album), She’s All That is a Clueless Soup for the most refined of palates.

*

Observations

It’s clear why high school is such a common film setting: its cliques and social structures reflect a simplified version of the real world, allowing writers to explore relationships and society in an easy-to-understand way. Despite their superficial similarities, the subject matter of these films differs markedly. You’ve got sex and power (Cruel Intentions), socioeconomics (Bring It On), hubris (Clueless), politics (Election), growing up (Princess Diaries), and class (She’s All That). The richness of setting also makes adapting classic texts relatively straightforwards.

The main weakness of the high school setting is the centrality of prom to the plotlines. I am so tired of watching prom scenes! The concept of crowning a Prom King and Queen is one of those bits of Americana that never stops being strange. You don't need to officially designate the most popular boy and girl. What kind of culture does that create! It's so stupid it doesn't work in creating tension, making it not only stupid, but boring, too. Boo!

Another thing that’s clear is how closely a film sticks to its genre blueprint has no bearing on quality: see Whatever It Takes (terrible) and Drop Dead Gorgeous (great). No surprise really, all genres have their good and their bad films. A better approach to genre is reading it as a “vibe”, a mood or a feeling sprung from a particular context. What is the Clueless vibe?

The nineties in the US under the Clinton administration was a time of optimism and stability, one borne of peace and a booming economy. But it was also a time of naivety -- prosperity allowed introspection to be kept at arm’s length. It’s into this milieu that Clueless and the films it inspired were released. Clueless is undoubtedly a good-times film, a celebration of privilege and of the winners of capitalism; wealth, more than anything, unites the characters that inhabit these films. Race feeds into it, the genre characterised by a predominant if not uniform whiteness. Only Bring It On punctures that bubble and asks whether wealth and exploitation go hand-in-hand.

Understood this way, it makes sense that the teen comedy has changed so much -- the contexts that created the Clueless genre simply don’t exist any more. The massive acceleration of social justice awareness -- and the resulting backlash -- post-financial crash disturbed the status quo, perhaps explaining why the teen comedy has been in hibernation for a decade or so. It’s hard to imagine a setting so confident in itself as to inspire a whole genre these days.

In fact, the (in my mind) two most successful teen comedies of the last decade -- 21 Jump Street and Sex Education -- speak to that confusion. Jump Street’s plot hinges on Tatum and Hill feeling out of place in a newly woke high school culture; while Sex Education is set in a US and UK high school hybrid in an indeterminate time period.

Clueless, then, is much like Cher herself: overly confident, blind to her privilege, vain, and consumerist -- but so enjoyable to be around that we can forgive any shortcomings.