SUGAR & SPICE
US, 2001, 81 minutes, Colour.
Marla Sokolow, Marley Shelton, Melissa George, Mena Suvari, Rachel Blanchard, Alexandra Holden, James Marsden, Sean Young.
Directed by Francine Mc Dougall.
If little girls are made of sugar and spice, then the exception is the group of cheerleaders in this slight film.
The film makes a great deal of the cheerleaders, their friendship, their practices, their performances, and other girls rather jealous, wanting to become cheerleaders.
One of the girls, Diane, Marley Shelton, is infatuated with Jack, one of the star sportsmen, played by James Marsden with an incessant smile and seemingly incurable optimism (something he brought to his performance in Enchantment). The other girls are somewhat tougher, especially Mena Suvari as Kansas, Melissa George is something of a sexpot, Rachel Blanchard is a young girl who belongs to a very religious family.
The gist of the story is that Diane thinks she is poor, Jack losing jobs, and while the group are watching Keanu Reeves in Point Blank, the bank robbery with masks, they get the idea that they should rob a bank, prepare, get girly masks and costumes, make contact with Kansas’ mother in prison to get some hints, go to a gun dealer who wants his daughter to become a cheerleader…
Despite everything, they carry it off – but they are dependent on the rival girl who tells the story to the police then gives them an alibi on condition that she can become a cheerleader!
1. A teen comedy? The touches of satire?
2. The cast, cheerleaders, sportsmen, teenagers, pregnancy? A robbery film?
3. The familiar American town, homes, school, dysfunctional families, cheerleaders and their roles in sports matches, friendships, cliques? The musical score?
4. Lindsey, the narration, talking to the police, her attitude to the other girls, telling the story, delineating their characters, some barbed comments, her recounting the events, jealousy, not successful as a cheerleader, her attraction to Jack? The robbery, her presence? The pressure on her, giving them an alibi? Able to join the clique and become a cheerleader?
5. Diane, her age, bright, cheerful, the cheerleader, the leader of the friends, her attitude towards her parents? Attraction to Jack, the Ouija board and his choice of her? Jack and being together, pregnant, the house, moving in, the ideals – and Jack always cheery and loving? Jack and his jobs? The girls, Diane thinking she was poor, watching Point Break on television, the idea of the robbery? Watching the other films, Reservoir Dogs, masks? Her studying the techniques of the robbery, the advice from the prisoners, going to get the guns, the dealer and his daughter and her becoming a cheerleader? The preparation?
6. Jack, all smiles, sport, attracted to Diane, successful at his jobs, the two young men admiring him, working with them? Diane, the house, the shopping, everything ideal and cheerful?
7. Girls, Chloe and the sex appeal, going to Hollywood? Lucy and Harvard? Hannah and the Church? Kansas and her aggression, her grandmother, visiting her mother in prison, the tough mother, the mother’s friend, the discussions about robberies?
8. The gun dealer, his daughter wanting to be a cheerleader? The guns, scrap, putting them together?
9. The masks, the blonde doll, the Nixon mask, the uniforms, the initial attempt, the repeat, the people in the bank, the assistant, Lindsey and her watching?
10. The money, happy, the gift of the pram? Lindsey giving them the alibi? Diane telling Jack that they won the lottery?
11. Happy ending and Lindsey as a cheerleader?
