What is a friend anyway? (Jawbreaker (DVD))

Member Name: linzeelou

Product:	Jawbreaker (DVD)
Date:	21/07/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not your average teen movie

Disadvantages: Silly plot

Jawbreaker is a drama/ comedy released in 1999 by TriStar Pictures. The film is 87 minutes long, making it just under an hour and a half which is a good thing. Jawbreaker wasn't fantastic and I'm sure it would have been even worse if they made it even longer.

Courtney, Julie, Marcie and Liz are the most popular clique at Reagan High School. Courtney is the leader who will go to any length to get what she wants or to get rid of anyone who gets in her way. Marcie is the dumb, but adoring best friend. Julie is kind and sensible and Liz is the sweet and innocent one. On the day of Liz's 17th birthday, the rest of the girls decide to play a trick on her and kidnap her but it doesn't go exactly to plan and ends in tragedy.

Fern overhears what happened to Liz so Courtney decides to give her a make over and make her popular in order to keep her quiet. Fern was once shy and geeky and no one ever really knew who she was, or even cared. Courtney seems to think that Fern needs a new name as well as a new image or their plan wont work so she renames her Vylette. Everyone goes crazy for the 'new girl' and Fern decides she can do what she wants now.

Julie ends up being the only one with a conscience and breaks away from the group because they wont confess to what happened. She meets a guy from the drama crowd who convinces her that telling the police is the right thing to do, especially because a detective is asking questions around school but it's only her word against Courtney's...or is it?

Cast
Courtney - Rose McGowan
Julie - Rebecca Gayheart
Marcie - Julie Benz
Fern - Judy Greer
Liz - Charlotte Roldan

Rose McGowan played the part of Courtney really well. She was manipulative, cunning and although she cares what people think of her and her friends, what she says, goes. Although it seemed like sometimes she was really pushing to come across as a bitch, most of the time it seemed to come easily. Courtney got most of the best lines in the movie and most of them are really clever and witty so that was probably one of the main reason why I liked her so much. She's the only one of the characters that seems to have no conscience at all and doesn't really care about what happened.

I wasn't so impressed with the other main characters in the film. Rebecca Gayheart probably annoyed me the most out of all of them though. Although she tried to showed how much she cared and was affected by what happened, I thought her acting was quite flat at times. I don't think the emotion came across as much as it could have and she just ended up being more whiney than anything else.

Some of my favourite lines from the movie are:

Fern: She's so evil...and she's only in high school.

Courtney: I mean, food's cool and all. It tastes good and you need it to live, but the mere act of eating involves thoughts of digestion, flatulation, defecation, even, shall we say, complexion defection.

Fern: The one in the green is Courtney. She was like Satan in heels.

Courtney: I don't believe we've met, what with the cruel politics of high school and all.

Jawbreaker is not your average teen movie because it isn't as funny as many others that are around. What is good about it though are the many witty lines and the banter between the group of friends. There are a couple of parts that make me giggle though but not loads. While I think Jawbreaker tried to do something different than other teen movies (which it did), I don't think it was done in a good way because the story was totally unrealistic.

Summary: It's ok, but i dont love it