Kimberly (Evan Rachel Wood,
Running with Scissors, Thirteen,
"Once and Again") is an obnoxious rich girl at a private Beverly Hills
high school. She has a horrible home life, with an absent mother who can't even
spell her name correctly, a disgusting, filthy-mouthed father (James Woods, This
Girl's Life), and a stepmother (Jaime King, Sin
City) she verbally abuses. After she is removed as the lead of the
school play, Kimberly decides to get back at her drama teacher, Mr. Anderson (Ron
Livingston), by claiming that she and her best friend Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois,
Strangers with Candy) and naïve Middle Eastern immigrant Randa (Adi
Schnall) were sexually harassed by him. At the same time, Emily (Jane Krakowski)
is a local tv reporter assigned to the school for a benign special interest story.
She pounces on the harassment angle to bring some attention to herself in the
media and then covers the trial. Emily is a lesbian, and her girlfriend
Nadine (Tina Holmes) is also her photographer. To get television exposure to help
with her acting aspirations, underage Kimberly first flirts with Emily and then
sleeps with her. Emily is like putty in her hands, as is just about everyone else
around her. Reminiscent of (but not quite up to par with) Wild
Things, another film with teens and false charges against a teacher, the
plot twists and eventual ending are unpredictable. Selma Blair (Cruel
Intentions, Amazon High), no longer the teen herself, also makes
an appearance as Mr. Anderson's wife Grace. |