April 01, 2009
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
Barely even a movie, more than a white elephant...
This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.
The apparent happy ending of Sara Sugarman's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) begins with a shot of Lindsay Lohan in the arms of the rock star teen-idol she pursued for the middle half hour of the film. It then dissolves to an identical shot of Lohan in the arms of the the barely noticeable bit character who's name had never registered and who's purpose in his few scenes was equally nebulous. Not to worry. A considerate voice over by Lohan explains both: “And then there's Sam. You know, he'd been there all along, but when I opened my heart to him I realized that now that my career is launched, maybe I could have a boy friend.” Well, I suppose that from the character's point of view, he had “been there” at school with her all that time. And I guess it's also possible that she had been harboring feelings for him “all along.” And that she had also been wrestling with an inner conflict about balancing her ambition and her desire to “have a boyfriend.” This would all be news to the audience. It is as if they only had 10 minutes to tell a story, and yet it felt so very much longer.
I have a confession to make myself. I have a disease. Or perhaps it is simpler to call it an addiction. “Cinemasochism” is the monkey on my back, and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is like that first high all over again. There are no end of bad movies in this world. They far outnumber the good ones. Yet I find Confessions so unique and so perplexing and so offensive as to worry that all the others left in the vaults have been spoiled for me. That perhaps finding this great new high I've sought for so long will leave me wanting no more, as the heroine addict after one triumphant night on methadone.
Confessions is a Disney film and a vehicle for the rising Lindsay Lohan who was hot off the much more competently executed remake of Freaky Friday. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece by any means. I understand that its a kids movie made for an audience of giggling fourteen year old girls. I did have a basic expectation of competence. What I got was a montage of unrelated and seemingly "found" scenes spliced together in an awful cinematic collage.
The film has no discernible character or drama. What little story is present is tacked together by voice over and coincidence. I'm not saying that you can't make a great film which doesn't conform to the storytelling conventions of Hollywood, or that there aren't worse movies which are even less coherent. But for a film of this type, a star driven kiddie movie from a major studio, Confessions is shockingly schlocky. Huge plot holes are dwarfed by mammoth coincidences and exaggerated but unearned payoffs.
Only in the climax, minutes after meeting Lohan's father for the first time, do we learn that he is the author of a popular children's book series. Interested? In fact, we learn this at the exact moment that it comes in handy for the character, winning Lohan into the good graces of her favorite rock star. On the DVD commentary the director gleefully pointed out (a good 10 minutes before that scene) that an advertisement for said children's book appears in a background shop window. Why wasn't I paying attention? It all makes so much sense now. It's a puzzle!
Yes, I watched the DVD commentary with director Sara Sugarman, writer Gail Parent, and producers Bob Shapiro and Jerry Leider. Before doing so I had worked up an idea that this film was merely unconventional and experimental. That it was attempting a different kind of storytelling than I couldn't understand, where the deus ex machina was a plot twist and the ridiculous coincidence became a titillating surprise. Perhaps, I thought, the artist was beyond myself.
Or at least that's what I might have satirically written about it here. I might have spun some good yarns too. But not now. Now I have journeyed to a place from which I cannot return. I have asked the cinemasochist's question: “What is a shitty movie,” and then I asked one better: “Where do they come from.”
Hacks. They come from hacks. All I can do to explain is to transcribe some of the filmmakers' own observations about their film and the process of making it. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is based on a book by Dyan Sheldon, which screenwriter Gail Parent muses “made it easier.” Interestingly, Parent takes full credit for this unmitigated piece of garbage by remarking how glad she is that the film was shot “as is,” with her script intact. I bet she initials her trash bags every Thursday morning, lest the neighbors take credit.
Much of the commentary is spent gabbing about the various consume changes and posses of Lindsay Lohan, who reminds the director of Grace Kelly. “She's a good little actress,” is all Sugarman has to say about Alison Pill, Lohan's ever present co-star. Pill's performance might actually be the only positive thing about the film. Her performace, though nothing special, is on another plane of existence. He failure to illicit interest from the filmmakers' can, I believe, be traced to her purpose as Lohan's homelier friend (she does look like Matt Lucas from Little Britain). Later, the whole gang chimed in to make fun of an overweight bit player.
Better still was when one the producers, having silently searched a good five minutes in a dictionary, cut off Parent mid sentence with the spelling of “non sequitur.” It happened! Perhaps my favorite moment came when Sugarman gave us an incite into her creative mind, a brief peak into the inspiration of cinema. Apparently, the final dance number (Lindsay Lohan and some background dancers stomping and hand-jiving on a high school auditorium stage) was meant to evoke a kind of “Busby Berkeley” feeling like the Broadway ballets of old. Guffaw.
That's all I've got, really. Wait, no, I forgot to mention that Megan Fox is talentless and unattractive. Ok, I can't go on. If this movie is for you, if you're a true cinemasochist, then you have heard the call by now. Good luck.
