Review of Drive Me Crazy

Introduction

Teen Romantic Comedy No. 3,782. The usual assortment of TV refugees spouting the quasi-sophisticated pop-cult of ‘Dawson’s Creek’ writer Rob Thomas, who, mercifully, keeps romantic brooding within bearable limits. This however, is the least of one’s worries when the packaging of this disc boasts the ecstatic quotes of “Brilliant” and “Bursting with laughs” from Bliss and Sugar magazines... Hmm, not what I`d call a stirring recommendation.

Video

For some bizarre reason, the film has been pan and scanned for our viewing displeasure. Still, the transfer is of a good quality, if hardly groundbreaking.

Audio

A Dolby 5.1 with crisp dialogue in the front channels. Sadly, the soundtrack is saturated in appalling American pop-punk that may be fine for selling Pepsi to Gap-kids, but as the constant audio accompaniment to a 90 minute film it borders on dental torture.

Features

Oh go on, give us a trailer, or maybe a short, crappy featurette? No? Okay, suit yourself, but you realize I’m going to have to give you a big fat zero? Fair enough, zero it is, and no, scene selections and the presence on an audio track with which to actually hear the movie do not count as extras features. 20th Century Fox, you’ve brought this on yourself.

Conclusion

In a word: mundane. The usual appalling Yank high-schooler stereotypes: rich, white Christian materialist Melissa Joan Hart and quasi-political, but mostly just greasy-haired ‘rebel’ Adrian Grenier, fall in love after trying to dupe their respective ex’s into believing they are a genuine ‘package’. The rampant stupidity of this hair-brained scheme aside, it all ends in the predictable prom-night finale precipitated by the obligatory ‘break-up’ third act, and, of course a patronizing and deeply depressing eternal teen-love ending.

Some of the performances aren’t bad, but the peripheral supporting cast are ritualistically undermined by a prosaic script that lumps in every cliché in the book (and more besides), a pointless subplot about Joan Hart’s estranged father (try remembering a thing about him), that attempts to lend a degree of emotional gravity to a posed and superficial story that has about as much dramatic concentration as an Old Navy ad. Plenty of cute people acting cutely, but quite literally nothing else.