Bynes, Amanda Bynes: Review: What a Girl Wants

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Review: What a Girl Wants

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What a Girl Wants (Widescreen Edition) (Snap Case) (DVD)
By Amanda Bynes

Among the current crop of female child actresses already or about to turn into hot properties for their impressive talent and major sex symbols for their knock-out looks is Amanda Bynes. Its an impressive class that includes the names Keira Knightley, Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff and Kristen Bell. But Bynes is one actress who has already reached television stardom through her shows "The Amanda Show" and "What I Like About You" and at the age of 16 she traveled to Europe to appear in a movie appropriately titled "American Girl."

Before it was released (in early 2003) its title had been changed to "What a Girl Wants" and I sat there in a movie theater knowing little about it. I knew it had been filmed in my home country and starred Colin Firth who had been so good in "Bridget Jones' Diary," I came away impressed by the comic timing and the looks of an actress that would obviously in years-to-come set movie screens on fire.

"What a Girl Wants" is at its heart a story about a girl searching to find herself. Bynes plays Daphne Reynolds and her mother Libby is played by Mrs. John Travolta (Kelly Preston). The two live in New York City and Daphne spends her time helping out at weddings where her mother is a singer and longing to know a father she has never met. It is observing the father-daughter dance at one of these weddings (where the filmakers used real fathers and daughters) that our hearts go out to Daphne and she determines a drastic plan of action - traveling to London and confronting her absent father.

The movie has it all - heart, laughter, suspense, romance. Its culture clash theme has been done before and better (Crocodile Dundee for example) but we have so much emotion invested in Daphne's plight that we cannot help but become engrossed in this movie.

Jonathon Pryce proves that his villainous turn in "Tomorrow Never Dies" was no fluke by pulling out a great performance here as the political advisor of Daphne's father (Firth). Thing is, Firth's character -Henry - is running for political office and Pryce sees Daphne as a liability to his boss' career and her presence an obstacle to his becoming father-in-law to the wealthy and politically powerful Henry.

This DVD has an impressive number of special features, the crown jewels of which are the two scene specific audio commentaries, one by Bynes and the second by the director and two writers.

I Liked how the subtitles automatically come up when commentaries are playing. If you have only seen it once it helps keep track of where you are in movie.

Light, fluffy, exuberant Amanda Bynes chats about working with the other actors, and how intimidated she was by some of the people she worked with. In her commentary she mentions how the weather was when a scene was shot - it was hot, hunid, raining etc

Obviously Bynes has a great deal of respect for Firth and Preston and almost inevitably Bynes spends a lot of time talking about clothes - big boots when hopping over the wall, commenting on how ugly the dress to a ball is etc. Bynes literally coos over emotional moments.

Hers is a fun commentary, but there are some gaps. I liked the recounting of anecdotal moments such as her account of being mobbed by fans on bridge that crew could not get permission to close for shooting.

On the second commentary director Dennie Gordon joined by the two writers Jenny Bicks and Elizabeth Chandler (the Amazon listing is incorrect in identifying them as actors). As one might expect this is more technical in details and as such serves as a nice contrast to Bynes solo track. The writers discuss such matters as how long they worked on it, the original inspiration and discuss different titles (the original title "American Girl" is mentioned on both tracks). The director talks about how wonderful the actors are and seems particularly pleased with Bynes performance.

Overall this is a very enjoyable family film and a great DVD package.

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Bynes, Amanda Bynes

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Review: What a Girl Wants

Review: What a Girl Wants

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