Welcome to A-Z Movie Reviews. Every Sunday, for the next several months, I will be posting a review of a film in my home movie collection. How it works is, I will be reviewing movies in alphabetical order until I get to the letter Z (Yes, I do have a film that ends in Z). Now I realize there are many ways to alphabetize a film collection, but this is mine so don’t judge me. This is simply for fun.
Female comedians do not often get the props they deserve, and they really should because they are just as funny as male comedians are. Amanda Bynes for example started off doing comedy on the Nickelodeon show All That. I still remember her “Ask Ashley” sketch and I always thought she was funny. She was not afraid to do physical comedy which is something that really stands out in the comedic world. As she got older, she went on to do other things including starring in one of my favorites She’s The Man.
And, after the last A-Z Movie Reviews it’s time for some comedy with this movie.
What it’s About:
When her brother Sebastian (James Kirk) decides to ditch for a couple weeks, Viola (Bynes) heads over to his elite boarding school, disguised as him, and proceeds to fall for his school’s star soccer player Duke (Channing Tatum), and soon learns she’s not the only one with romantic troubles.
Crazy premise, right? But it works and you want to know why? Because Viola and Sebastian are twins. Of course, he’s a boy and she’s a girl but they do have a slight resemblance to one another. Also, I have to point out that this blurb leaves out the main reason Viola even disguises herself in the first place. Viola plays on the girls’ soccer team at her school Cornwall until the team gets cut. The money that was for her team is now going to the boy’s team which her jerk boyfriend Justin (Robert Hoffman) is on.
Sebastian is supposed to be starting at elite boarding school Illyria, but instead he tells Viola he is taking off to London with his band and he asks her to cover for him. Viola agrees but takes it to another level by disguising herself as him so she can try out for the boys’ soccer team there. Her goal is to make it on the team and then beat Cornwall to prove to her former coach and Justin that he was wrong for getting rid of the girls’ soccer team because they are just as good as the boy’s team.
While Viola is at Illyria, she does make the team with the help of Duke who she ends up falling for. At the same time one of their classmates Olivia (Laura Ramsey) is falling for Viola who she thinks is Sebastian. Meanwhile, Duke is crushing on Olivia. Extremely complicated right? A hugely tangled web. To help you better understand the plot, She’s The Man is basically a modern-day version of William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. If you are familiar, then you know all the characters I just mentioned are literally the names of the characters in Twelfth Night.
She’s The Man is such an entertaining film and I just love Amanda Bynes. Her comedic timing is perfect and her physical comedy which I mentioned above is awesome (See Bathroom fight scene). I do not think people really take the time to appreciate her performance in this movie.
I thought she was great, and it makes me sad to know that she went into a deep depression because she didn’t like how she looked as a boy. I’m not an actor so obviously I have no idea what kind of toll something like this takes on someone but I will always love She’s The Man and Amanda Bynes in this role.
Do you want to watch this movie? Feel free to share with us in the comments below!
She’s The Man is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
