This movie surprised me. I don't laugh much at movies because the humor usually doesn't appeal to me. And an lol is really rare. In this movie, I had several loll's.
The story was a bit unusual and except for the last two scenes wasn't that predictable. There are several intentionally silly situations, like Jenny climbing a tree so she can fall and hit her head. But there are some artfully orchestrated situations also. There's some witty dialogue. And one of my personal favorites, there are some great facial expressions.
It also covered a very serious topic and even offered one possible alternative as a ray of hope for those who are bullied. Bullying is a terrible social injustice perpetrated by the privileged over those who aren't, and the thing is that the bully's don't really gain anything from it except hollow self-importance. Authorities can try to overcome it and don't really try hard enough, but only when the bullied believe in themselves will the bullying go away. Unfortunately, that is such a hard thing to do when you're bullied and it will not occur as long as any of us believe the lies that we're told by almost everything around us in the world except true friends and family (unfortunately not always) and God.
The acting is pretty good. There's chemistry in places where it's needed, and there's antagonism in places where that's needed. For me, the star was Madison Pettis despite her being slightly secondary to Ricci. Remember what I said about facial expressions? But she also shows hurt in more ways than just tears. I didn't care for Derek Krantz's performance. He was just shallow and lame, but some of that was the writing.
