Never Been Kissed
Tags: romantic, prank, cruelty, flashback

Plot synopsis:
Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) is a highly intelligent, if pedantic and lonely, copy-editor for the Chicago Sun-Times. Josie desperately wants to be a reporter, and constantly sends story ideas to her boss, Gus (John C. Reilly), who appreciates her eagerness but does not believe she is up to the challenge of being a reporter. Josie is disillusioned with her life and avoids other people, which puzzles her promiscuous co-worker Anita (Molly Shannon). One day during a staff meeting, the tyrannical editor-in-chief, Rigfort (Garry Marshall) assigns her to report undercover at a high school to help parents become more aware of their children's lives. Josie is overjoyed, but Anita and Gus think its a bad idea, and that she will get fired. But she asserts herself and hurries to tell her younger brother, Rob (David Arquette), a former high school baseball champion who works at a postage and packaging store named the Tiki Post and is similarly disillusioned with life.Rob thinks it is a terrible idea for Josie to go undercover as a student, and reminds her of her own awful high school career, where she was a misfit treated with contempt and cruelty by her peers, and was labelled "Josie Grossie". A nickname which continues to haunt her, along with her misery at being treated so brutally. Josie has never had a romance due to her insecurities. She is unnerved, but is determined to undergo the assignment.Her first day at South Glen South High School is miserable. Josie reverts back to the old geeky persona that ruined her first high school career. She is late to class and is forced to wear a sombrero as punishment by her eccentric, menopausal teacher. She also has an unfortunate run in with Gibby, Kirsten and Kristen, three mean, popular girls, and Guy Perkins (Jeremy Jordan), the most attractive, popular student at South Glen South. Upon discovering that Guy and his friends have hidden her car, Josie becomes exasperated but is warmed when a kind-hearted, intelligent girl named Aldys (Leelee Sobieski) befriends her. Aldys dislikes Guy Perkins and his gang, referring to them as "lemmings", and they in turn view her as an uncool geek. Aldys sugguests that Josie should join The Denominators, a group of intelligent students. Josie does but fails to get her story.Josie becomes enamoured with her young English teacher Sam Coulson(Michael Vartan), who is a fan of Shakespeare, as is Josie, and she becomes the top student in his class. After reciting a romantic excerpt from Shakespeare to Sam, Josie has horrible flashbacks to where she read a romantic poem aloud in class to her high school crush, a popular boy named Billy Prince, much to his amusement. Later on in the library, her friend Sheila delivers the news that Billy Prince wants to take Josie to the senior prom, making her dream come true.One night whilst out driving with Aldys, Josie encounters Guy Perkins and his gang at a local hangout called "The Court" where promiscuity and underage drinking takes place. Guy is nasty to Josie and Aldys, who claims that nothing exciting happens in Guy's court, but Josie knows form experience that Aldys secretly longs to be popular.Gus loses patience with Josie after a rival paper exposes the truth on The Court, and orders to Josie to become friends with the popular kids. He arranges for her to wear a hidden camera that will report back information to Gus, and soon the whole office become obsessed with Josie's story. Anita, after hearing Josie's recital of Shakespeare, grows unhappy with her promiscuous lifestyle and develops an attraction towards Gus, and he reciprocates.Josie goes home she confides in Rob about fears. She tearfully tells him that South Glen South is simply a repetition of her old high school days and all she wants is to be accepted and not abused. Rob - who was the most popular guy in school in his youth - insists that if Josie can get one cool person to like her, then no one will dare question her. He urges her to let go of her old self and start anew. Determined, Josie goes to school the next day and overhears Guy telling his group about a cool band that are playing in a bar that night. Josie follows and meets Sam and his uptight girlfriend Lara. However she is tricked into eating a hash brownie and makes a fool of herself onstage by dancing wildly in front of Guy, the girls and Sam.The next day Josie sleeps in for school. As her hand was stamped "delloser" the night before at the club, the ink prints the word "loser" on her forehead, unknown to her. She merrily goes to school and is horrified to find everyone mocking her. She runs to the bathroom, sees the mark on her face and vomits in the toilet. She breaks down in tears and remembers the night of her prom. She was overjoyed at the thought of Billy Prince taking her to the prom and waits outside for him in her prom gown. But when Billy arrives in his limo, he has another girl with him and the both of them hurl eggs and insults at Josie, who collapses in tears.As she runs through the school hall, she encounters Rob who has enrolled as a new student and schemes to help her be popular. He becomes an instant hit with Guy Perkins and the other trendy kids, and spreads incredible stories about Josie, convincing the others that she is not a loser. Much to the anger of Aldys, Josie becomes popular and hangs out with the cool crowd.Sam and Josie grow closer but Sam struggles with his feelings as he thinks that she is a student and therefore off limits. Josie begins dating Guy and she recommends that the theme for the senior prom should be "Meant for Each Other", famous couples from around the world. This idea is met with approval and Guy and Josie attend the prom as Rosalind and Orlando from Shakespeare's As You Like It. Anita, Gus and Josie's various other co-workers watch through the camera and are overjoyed as she is voted prom queen.As Guy dances with Aldys, as an alleged act of friendship, Josie dances with Sam and watches, horrified, as Gibby, Kirsten and Kristen nearly pour dog food over Aldys as revenge for her insulting them. Josie knocks the can away from Aldys and spills dog food over the three girls, who turn on her and denounce her as a loser. Infuriated, Josie throws her crown away and reveals her true age and occupation, and that she is disgusted by them. She angrily states how shallow the popular girls are, and praises Aldys for her kindness. Josie warns the students that who you were in high school means nothing outside in the real world and urges them to be themselves. She flees and leaves the students appalled. Sam is hurt by her lies and states he wants nothing to do with her.Josie vows to give Gus a story and write her story of her own high school career. She admits she has never been kissed, and also mentions the students of South Glen South, kindly remarking on Guy's confidance, Gibby, Kirsten and Kristen's beauty, and Aldys's intelligence, and her love for Sam. The entire city is moved by her story and the pain she suffered in her teens. She says she will stand in the middle of the baseball field and wait for Sam to come and kiss her, if he really loves her.Josie waits but Sam has not heard as he is moving to New York. She waits with encouragement from Anita, Aldys, Gus, Guy and the girls. However just when her five minutes on the clock runs out, Sam appears, apologizes for being late and kisses her.

Review: Actually the first time for me was bad enough and at my age I doubt I could pull it off the way Drew does.Of course the reason could also be that once we leave high school it's like leaving a cocoon and we have to deal with the great big unfriendly world out there.
A girl looking young enough to pull it off, goes through high school at least three times and kills the person who stumbles on her secret.With Drew though it's an assignment.
Publisher Garry Marshall who plays the part like Donald Trump took over the Sun Times gets this brilliant idea and just sees in Barrymore a young enough looking person to pull off the masquerade.
Michael Vartan as her English teacher is the kind I wish there were more of in the education field and Leelee Sobieski and Jessica Alba play a pair of the empty headed cool kids that Drew tries so desperately to hook up with.Still it doesn't inspire me to return to Midwood High School..
Drew as Josie and her romance with the teacher is so sweet and brother baseball wannabee adds to the movie's good feeling.
The gorgeous Michael Vartan was adorable as the teacher (wish there had been teachers like that when I was at high school!) and Josie's boss is fantastic.
I think this movie more than any other shows what a great actress Drew Barrymore is because she plays a ugly duckling in high school which is something I never imagined her being.
I, however think it was painful to watch because I had such a hard time at high school, and I could relate to this movie.It reminded me of "Mean Girls" a lot, although this had a softer edge to it.It was a bit predictable, but, sometimes a good, sweet, romance with a happy ending is what you want in a movie.The acting was good, and the story was believable-if a bit far-fetched.The sound track was awesome!.
It's been a while since seeing this film, but to write this review I re-watched it, and remembered everything I loved about it.Drew Barrymore is a great actress, and this role suited her really well at the time.
In this appealing though predictable teen flick, she's an eager writer for a newspaper given a chance to prove she can do more by going undercover to see what today's teens are up to in high school, and finds that nothing's really changed.Drew is as engaging as ever whether appearing in class way too overdressed or dancing on stage while on drugs (relax, the film's overall pretty inoffensive), and it may have been prophetic that her joke about having been named Josie after the leader of a cartoon rock band goes over the head of her best friend at school (the film version of "Josie and the Pussycats" was a box office flop in America).
Call me soppy, but I like a happy ending, and this does have one (even The Prettiest Girls In School don't turn out to be that horrid in the end).If only the Seekers' "Free To Be You And Me" (which Drew and her friends sing along to in a car in one scene) and some of David Newman's sweet score had been on the soundtrack album, but that's not a problem exclusive to this film; what with this and "Charlie's Angels" (not to mention "Olive, the Other Reindeer") Barrymore's record as a producer is a lot better than, say, Michelle Pfeiffer's.
This film looks like it was written by people who never went to high school, who instead formed their impression of human experience by watching TV shows.
Watching this film, you'll learn:* If a nerd tries to buy a ticket to the high school prom, she'll be turned away.* The prom queen can instantly lose all her friends at the prom by putting a stop to a prank.* If you are a reporter writing a story and you get scooped, you'll be fired immediately.* If a male high school teacher rides on a ferris wheel with a female student, and tells her that men will chase after her when she's older, he'll be the subject of an expose in the local newspaper.* If you're a nerd, and a cute guy asks you to the prom, say no: if you say yes, he'll pass you by in the limo and throw eggs at you.* If you're a newspaper reporter working on an undercover story, you'll wear a little camera in a pin on your shirt, and your exploits will be beamed back to the paper where you work, where all your co-workers will watch everything that happens to you.* A 25-year-old woman who's never been kissed, and who dreams of falling in love with the right guy, will, once she meets the right guy, advertise in the paper that she'll be waiting for him to kiss her in front of an audience of a few thousand people.I don't think I can think of one authentic human moment in the whole movie.
Drew Barrymore stars as Josie, and as usual, she is very cute and charming.This movie is a comedy, but unfortunately, it's not very funny.
I felt sorry for Josie (Drew Barrymore) because she was tortured in high school.
And i think that films like "Never Been Kissed" (Althoug its 8 years of been realized) are another great teen comedy with successful characters that don't fall in an awful cliché, as its plot."Never Been Kissed" told us the story of Josie Geller, a young reporter who has a big job to do.
Starring by Drew Barrymore (Fantastic, maybe in one of her best as Josie Geller), Michael Vartan, David Arquette, Leelee Sobiesky, Molly Shannon, Jeremy Jordan and John C.
Reilly, "Never Been Kissed" is a beautiful nostalgic romantic comedy, with amazing performances, cool music and a funny and entertaining story.Is good to found films like "Never Been Kissed" (Or its Spanish title "Jamas Besada").
Now I don't know what high school was like for the rest of you but our teacher's love lives where usually not discussed at length with students.One also needs to remember what a unbelievably bad actress Drew is.
Josie Geller (the lovely Drew Barrymore) is an editor of a newspaper in Chicago who gets her first chance as reporter in a matter about the life of the high-school students.
On the contrary, her brother Rob (David Arquette) was very popular in high school and became a looser in real life, regretting for not having a chance as a baseball player.
It's horrible to be bullied, but because it's a movie you can laugh because that's what it's made for, except i really felt sorry for Josie and sometimes i often cried while watching this film.
I should know, I go to high school.First Drew Barrymore plays a shy reporter who is walked upon.
The only thing about this movie is to have the socially-adept, but mentally-handicapped kids accept you, you must have somebody just as moronic get you into the good crowd.Drew cannot play this role at all.
I also liked the over all message of how high school people will never change, the popular kids will still treat most like dirt, the dorks will become smart and rich successes in life, and the jocks will only go on about the good old days.
Although, it does have some good stuff in it, mainly the beautiful women, David Arquette, and few other cool supporting characters, but other than that, there isn't really a whole lot going for this movie.The story is fairly interesting, but nothing terribly profound or intriguing, granted this obviously wasn't intended to be a profound or intriguing movie.
I'm not really one to complain about sappiness either, but her character was a little too sappy as well.In the end, I definitely wouldn't recommend going out of your way to see this film, but if you get a chance to see it for free, or just feel in the mood for another love story...then go ahead and check this one out.
Like Drew's character, as she stated in the voice-over in her article at the end, I have never fully recovered from what happened to me back in high school.
If you like watching a feel good movie, there are a lot of reasons to watch this movie.The movie has a message of redemption, in that a woman, with a terrible teenage-hood/high school experience of having pranksters torture her, gets to relive high school and gets to set it straight.The movie sends a powerful overarching message, loudly and well stated by Drew Barrymore's character Josie.
By telling them off, she set it straight and what she says is the truth, despite the unrealistic nature of this movie.But the main reason, I like to re-watch this movie over and over again is two seconds of music from a song I heard many times on the radio, but never seemed to hear the notes, I hear when it plays in the climax of this movie.During the movie's climactic scene Josie (Drew Barrymore) stands on the pitcher's mound prior to a big high school baseball championship game waiting for a man, who she accidentally hurt, to come give her, her first kiss.
I very strongly dislike teen movies.This one sounded like all the rest of them but it wasn't.Drew Barrymore plays Josie Gellar,a former high school geek that everybody couldn't wait to make fun of.She gets a chance to go back to high school, undercovered, for a story for the Chicago Sun Times.She finally fits in thanks to her brother(David Arquette) and she develops a crush on a teacher(Michael Vartan ~sigh~).
'm not a big Drew Barrymore fan but this movie was kind of good.
I hate the way movies now a days make it like smart people can NEVER be popular.Is this the way that suburban high schools are really like?
Drew Barrymore plays Josie to perfection, David Arquette steals the show as Rob, Leelee pulls off the whole geek thing and Jeremy Jordan is lust worthy as Guy.
Maybe people should look at movies like Pretty In Pink and Fast Times and The Sure Thing and you will see a great example of coming of age.
the main character (Drew Barrymore, who is not sexy enough or talented enough to have a movie) is a reporter who sacrifices her career for popularity.The message is as horrible as the acting.
While there is no problem with a movie about a girl who goes back to high school, elevating her for doing so is appalling and shows that the character has de-matured and fallen into a world of fantasy.It was painful for me to watch this as it was not comedic or effective in sparking emotion for me to recommend to anyone.
Okay, so before I start I would like to make it clear that I saw this movie late on in life, and it's already considered kind of old, which I'm sure has had a huge impact on my judgment of the film...
In the film Drew had to wait until she was nearly 25 to get the kiss of her dreams, I had to wait that long to see this movie, and like the kiss, some things are kind of over rated..
Never been kissed (1999) is a very cute, well made romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and David Arquette.
Drew Barrymore really does shine in this film, she fills the role of Josie Geller perfectly, no other actress could've done a better job in the starring role here.
Drew Barrymore stars as Josie Gellar, a geeky copy editor for the Chicago Sun-Times who lands her first journalistic gig masquerading as a 17 year-old at a local high school.
Never Been Kissed is a cute little movie with a silly plot- A newspaper editor named Josie Gellar, played by Drew Barrymore, dreaming of becoming a reporter is given a story to go undercover and to write about the high school scene.Having been a nerd and taunted a lot in high school, she sees this as a second chance to be "cool".
Josie manages to become friends with both the popular and geeky kids and her second chance in high school becomes the life she always dreamed of.She becomes well liked in the school and starts to fall for her teacher.As school life and fun as a teen starts to get to her head, she begins to get closer to her deadline and must make a decision between blowing her cover and possibly dating the teacher or simply just writing her story and being done with high school forever.And to top it all off, she hasn't been kissed and would love for her teacher to be her first kiss.
If you're into girly movies and high school movies and feel good movies, you will LOVE Never Been Kissed.
This means a lot to me personally because I am an aspiring screenwriter and I have written a screenplay about high school, that tries to, like this movie, teach the audience.
Drew Barrymore at times can be a bit fake but it the scenes where it counts it makes you feel for the character and relate to her and David Arquette does the same.
Somebody on this board said that he doesn't believe a girl who looks like Drew Barrymore would be so unpopular throughout high school and beyond.
If looks alone would've given her popularity in high school, I'd have girls all over me from elementary school through my senior year.Anyway, within the beginning of the movie it's entirely plausible that Josie Geller would have a tough time shaking her old high school demons while trying to pass as a high school student for an undercover news story.
As Drew Barrymore's character Josie quickly finds out as an undercover reporter posing as a high school student , that's just not the case.
Good so far.Enter her brother, Rob (David Arquette) -- who, despite having spoiled her life when she was in high school by pinning the name "Josie Grossy" on her, is now willing to help her out and get her into that popular crowd.
Watch Ever After if you want a Cinderella story with Drew Barrymore -- a much better film -- and at least there, in a fantasy world, you can suspend disbelief..
I guess what I am trying to say is the movie is good and its fun, "remember high school doesn't change"..only the people attending it do!!!.
Josie tells her brother Rob (David Arquette) about how she gets to go back to high school.
I thought Drew Barrymore was great in the movie as she was able to portray Josie Geller very well, both as a geek in high school and a modern career woman.
Why is that just because you are popular it gives you a license to treat the rest of us like dirt?)Drew Barrymore is such a wonderful actress that so many times during this movie, tears came to my eyes because it was like I was watching myself on screen.
Let's see, this film end at some dumb high school prom like all the other stupid teeny bopper movie do.
Man!I want something new, I don't want the dumb same old crap that I've already seen like a billion of times.If you really want to make an good movie, TRY MAKING YOUR OWN Than copy other people's work.No Stars.
I don't know if I would personally want a second chance to relive my high school years, but I certainly enjoyed doing it vicariously through Drew Barrymore.
This movie had all of the necessary elements to put it in a class of its own - romance, humor, tons of emotion, and lots more.I've been to see it 4 times now, and I don't think I could possibly get sick of watching Drew light up the screen as Josie.
But a Studio Head thought it would be a great idea if they made another movie about high school.
A good time for everyone who might like a second chance to make that first high school impression....
Drew Barrymore was very funny in this film and David Arquette added a nice comic touch as well.
Last year's "Ever After" showed the world that she could carry a film on her own, "Never Been Kissed" proves that was no fluke.Barrymore portrays Josie Geller, a newspaper employee for the Chicago Sun-Times, who is given a reporting assignment to return undercover as a student in high school.
I know that this is a movie, but what suburban Chicago high school is going to let a girl wear a belly shirt that practically cuts off at her nipples?There is charm in "Never Been Kissed", but this is only because of Barrymore.
Drew Barrymore is charming as Josie Geller, a 25-year old reporter who receives the assignment to go undercover as a high school senior.
Josie had always been a geek in high school and is hoping to make a better impression this time.
Twenty-five year old Josie learns that she becomes a high school girl again when she hides as a student reporting for her real job in life is.
What is really neat about this movie is that they go back in time when she was in high school.
"Never Been Kissed", staring Drew Barrymore, is a new comedy about a 25 year-old women named Joise Gellar, who realizes it doesn't matter what your place is in High School.
I like Drew Barrymore and had heard good things about her performance but was not expecting too much.
I thought it was a great film and Drew did a fantastic job of making you relate to Josie and how she must have felt back in high school.