Way better than I thought it would be.

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2010)

This film is well written and well acted. Ms Stone puts in a fine performance and just about everyone else really gives their best, particularly Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Thomas Hayden Church and Lisa Kudrow. Also thank you Amanda Bynes for rethinking your decision to retire from acting!
One reviewer said that the characters were not fully fleshed out but I find myself disagreeing. The writer and director got a lot out of some characters that sometimes had only a minute or so screen time. Some of them we learned a lot about their private anguish or history or relationships in only a few lines. Solid writing.
Others have said it, but what the hell I will too...this film is a loving tribute to the '80's teen films of John Hughes including many of the implausibilities. It's a comedy that actually veers into some fairly sophisticated satire at a few points, plausibility isn't the issue here. Like the Hughes films, it isn't about what teens would actually do or say, but what we *wish* they would or what we wish we would have in our own high school days.
One thing. What John Hughes did in his films was work with real teen aged actors whereas Mr. Gluck has chosen to return to the old cliché of having actors in their 20's play high schoolers and that is a mistake. The kids in the Hughes films *look* young and vulnerable and the viewers are reminded of that. When older actors are used something is lost, that's all I'm saying.