Teen Tuesdays - Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging THE MOVIE (2008) (Directed by Gurinder Chadha)

I've just finished watching the movie Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. It is based on the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson teen novel series. Being a teen movie, I did not have very high expectations for this film. I found the books to be entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny at times, but the online ratings for this film were not very high.

The movie gets off to a great start, with Georgia walking down the street in her stuffed olive costume while her dad trails her in his car. When she gets to the party she is going to, she is disappointed to see her "ace gang" (friends) did not go with their theme of hors d'oeuvres, and are instead wearing typical "cute/sexy" costumes girls usually wear to costume parties (an angel, devil, and princess).  She is laughed at by the party-goers, and is told by her best friend basically that boys don't like funny girls. This is your first taste of Georgia, and immediately, the viewer can see how different Georgia really is.

Over the next couple of scenes, you're introduced to the rest of the characters, and how they translate on-screen. I think the casting was marvelous in this film. The actors weren't actors I was familiar with, which made it a lot easier to picture them as the characters in the book. The actors really did portray the characters exactly as they were in the novels, and being a fan of the books, this made me pretty happy.

The movie was full of colour, and snappy (mostly British) pop songs that really fit the mood. It was your typical teen movie with plenty of drama and gushing over the opposite sex. As much as I would like to say I hated it, I was captivated and it did make me smile. ...At least for the first half.

The first half of the the movie did not stray too far from what happened in the books. I believe the story line took us through the first book with a few elements from the second book wedged in to keep the plot going. The conversations between the characters often mimicked the conversations read in the book, they used the same slang, and they even said some things in French as Georgia and the ace gang often did in the written series. The Disco Inferno dancing, kissing lessons, and name of the band, The Stiff Dylans, held true to the novels, and I really appreciate that when watching a film based on a book.

Other than the "Sex Gods" being twins (they are just brothers in the book), the boys going to the same school (Georgia goes to an all-girls' school in the book), and the "Sex God" having a cat (no mention of this in the book), the beginning of the movie held pretty true to the book.

HOWEVER...

Then you reach the second half of the movie where everything goes awry. I don't know if it's just me, but nothing was as I remembered it in the books. The second half of the film seems to be more about Georgia trying to keep her parents from divorcing than anything else. She even goes to the extent of talking to her dad's boss to try to get him to transfer her dad back from New Zealand and agreeing to move there in order to keep her parents from splitting up.

The movie suddenly goes into true "teen-movie" mode when all of a sudden this modest-looking family has the big bucks to throw Georgia a "Hollywood" style birthday party at a club. Out of nowhere, the unpopular and awkward Georgia has the whole school at her party while the pretty and popular Lindsay sits alone. Lindsay, obviously being portrayed as the villain, then tries to ruin Georgia's party by putting Georgia down in front of everyone on stage. Of course we had to have a happy ending though, so Robbie (The Sex God) rejects Lindsay and goes in for a big, public, kiss with Georgia.

This film had potential to be quite a good comparison with the books, but I think it failed miserably towards the end. Great if you're just looking for a teen movie to entertain you, awful if you're looking for it to follow the story-line in the books. I hope they aren't planning on a sequel, because I think it would just sorely disappoint anyone who became a fan of the written series.