Never Been Kissed

Some films force you to think of the camera, looming behind the actors, displaying the star and Never Been Kissed seldom manages to push the film production process very far away.

That Drew Barrymore is the executive producer of Never Been Kissed might have had something to do with this but it was the overwhelming falseness of Never Been Kissed that really threw the "I can't believe this anymore" sentiment into sharp relief.

This film is absolutely stuffed with Barrymore's forced girly giggles and shoulder shrugs, gestures guaranteed to have all but girls who giggle squirming.

Add to this the set retinue of stock characters who always get paraded in these sorts of American movies and we have an entertainment that is likely to have you squirming within the first reel.

Josie Geller (Barrymore) is a 25 year old assistant editor at the Chicago Sun Times. She asks for and gets an assignment as an undercover reporter at her old high school. Her assignment - to find a story, any story worth printing.

She was a dork 8 years earlier when she was in her final year at high school and had found the experience humiliating. She's not much more socially adept these days.

Josie gets spurned by the kool at school and predictably the other geeks befriend her. They are led by Aldys, played by Leelee Sobieski, the girl from Deep Impact.

The film makers milk the geek at high school comic factor as far as possible and Barrymore in turn hams it up mercilessly. She was charming in her sparkly new, good girl, guise in Ever After and in The Wedding Singer but here she's just embarrassing.

You can pick about 15 minutes in that Never Been Kissed will head for the prom and that there will be the usual reckoning and comeuppance we have seen dozens of times in film. There is a final scene that is a bit of a surprise and this is a genuinely nice moment but it's not worth waiting for.