It’s a Boy Girl Thing

Sometimes all you need for a good screenplay is a nice new twist on a story everyone knows. You probably have seen body-swapping comedies. You know the ones- two people who can’t get along find each other in the other one’s bodies and have to go through life in each other’s places for a while. Freaky Friday (1976) with Jodie Foster or the 2003 version with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, for instance. However this time it is not a mother and daughter unwillingly swapping- it is the boy and girl who live next to each other and well…really hate one another.

Nell (Samaire Armstromg) and Woody (Kevin Zegers) are two neighbors with distinctly different family lives, income levels, high school popularity and personalities.

Nell is a straight A student aiming for Yale. She is also a romantic waiting for the right guy to lose her virginity to. Her mother is a controlling, stuck-up woman and her dad is just quietly tolerating his wife.

Woody is the quarterback. He doesn’t have good grades but he does have the head cheerleader as his girlfriend. His father really thinks he will end up running the family store rather than going to college and this truly pisses Woody off.

Nell and Woody just can’t stand each other and love annoying one another. But one day, something happens at the high school trip to the museum. They wake up the next morning only to find themselves in the other one’s body. Now, trying to destroy each other’s reputations seems fun at first. But later they realize that there is more to each side’s story and they decide to help each other out. Now both the destroying and helping out parts are thoroughly hilarious as Nell in Woody’s body first acts like the model student and then tries to learn to play football. And Woody as Nell has to study Shakespeare and prepare for a university interview but not before acting like a total slut…

Both Kevin Zegers and Samaire Armstrong are great and the movie makes you laugh out loud all around. Do not be fooled by the romance tag. The story doesn’t get romantic until towards the end. Directed by Nick Hurran and written by Geoff Dane.

Here’s the trailer: