IT’S A BOY/GIRL THING

UK/Canada, 2006, 95 minutes, Colour.
Samaire Armstrong, Kevin Zegers, Sherry Miller, Robert Joy, Sharon Osbourne, Maury Chaykin.
Directed by Nick Hurran

This is a light comedy aimed squarely at the age group presented in the film, senior teenagers, Americans in high school thinking about going to college. Their parents and other adults might find the film a bit slight with a sense of déjà vu.

It is full of stereotypes, which is perhaps the point. It’s a mild comedy but it is also a moral fable about being oneself and not living up to other’s expectations.

Nell (Samaire Armstrong) is a born student with a love for poetry, expected to go to Yale by her snobbish mother. She is perpetually irritated by her next door neighbour, Woody (Kevin Zegers), the school jock and football star. They go through all the motions of the ladylike versus the boor.

And then, hocus pocus, their souls change bodies. Each of them has to learn what it is like, not only to walk in someone else’s shoes, but to manage in a body of the opposite sex. Woody then becomes quite prim. Nell slouches and slobs around. Friends are shocked. Parents bewildered. Woody-body has to play in the football final and become Homecoming king. Nell-body has to go for an interview for Yale and discuss poetry. Needless to say…

1. An entertaining comedy? Teenagers? Changing roles? New awareness? Target audience?

2. The American setting, the hometown, homes, neighbours? Schools? Prospect of college?

3. The title, indication of role reversals, changing bodies, the girl trapped in the male body, a man trapped in a girl’s body?

4. Nell and Woody, in themselves, as neighbours? The two families? The portrait of each of the parents? Sharon Osbourne in a cameo role?

5. Nell, poised, sensitive, studious, her plans for Yale? At home, at school? Reactions to Woody, thinking him a slob? Her relationship with her parents?

6. Woody, the school jock, good at football, slob attitudes? Attitudes towards Nell? His own friends, football world? His relationship to his parents?

7. Nell and Woody together, clashes? Going to the Museum? The Aztec God? The effect?

8. The body changes? Woody and his reaction to breasts? Nell and her reaction to having a penis? The jokes about body changes, awareness of the body, bodily functions, differences for males and females?

9. Nell and her becoming Woody, the demands on her, his friends, his plans, reacting to him?

10. Woody, becoming Nell, the demands on him, a different world, different school world?

11. The reaction to their parents, at home – and the change happening for a week?

12. The interactions between the two, changes in sensitivities, perspectives? Nell realising how snobbish she was? Woody admitting his jock attitudes?

13. Back to normal? The two understanding each other, the romantic response? Nell and her postponing her going to college? Woody postponing? Time together – change in the future?