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I believe it as a rule of thumb that all the American high schools I have been to are presided over by a gang of snobs led by a blonde and overly confident cat who is more prepped up for a roasting than standing in life. This character has two sidekicks who are a little shorter than her, who follow her around like lost puppies. However, those schools also have a group of friends which are not well liked and do not think of themselves as attractive, although they really are, because they are clever, witty and way more pleasant company than the bitch pack.
In this formula’s classic apotheosis, the blonde fiend who rules the world has a muscle bound boyfriend whom the shy geek is infatuated with, and everything gets sorted out during the prom dance, where the mouse is revealed to be the true beauty, and the ugly side of the most popular girl is exposed in a cringe-worthy manner.
“Sleepover” is a dull and tiresome comedy that does not use the phrase “the blonde gets dumped by her boyfriend,” because it serves as some sort of pseudo almost standup show on a deeper level. This shifts the age group younger so that the girls are just beginning their high school years. And it lowers the stakes instead of fighting for the captain of the football team, the opponents fight for the coveted seat in the cafeteria’s garden. The winners of this battle sit at the “catchers” table while the losers find themselves at the dumpster. The fact that there are schools that have lunch areas beside toilets doesn’t reflect highly on their sanitation standards, but we would just ignore that.
The girl we are meant to root for is Julie and she is portrayed by Alexa Vega of ‘Spy Kids’ fame. Stacie (Sara Paxton) fills the role of the character you are expected to detest. Julie’s group also includes Hannah (Mika Boorem), a self sacrificing friend who plans to move to Canada for, as far as I can tell, no reason other than to allow a character without any specific attributes some depth; and Farrah (the wonderfully named Scout Taylor Compton). Farrah’s character exists mostly as an aesthetic choice for the cinematographer when composing sets with multiped characters. Julie wants to have a sleepover and last minute invites the unfortunate Yancey (the also wonderfully named Kallie Flynn Childress), a girl who is overweight and very self conscious about her body. It is so cruel in nature that the invitation is deeply insulting. Unfortunately, Yancy does not see it that way. She accepts it gratefully. The sleepover is to be held at the house of Gabby (Jane Lynch), who is the also wonderfully named Julie’s mom. Gabby sets a few rules for the sleepover and her husband Jay (Jeff Garlin) tends to ignore them. Knowing how negligent the parents in teenage comedies are, it’s obvious that nothing will be done even if his children move the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus into their rooms.
Stacie, the popular girl, shows up at the slumber party to offer a scavenger hunt where the winner walks away with the coveted lunch table at school. The girls, who plan to leave the house undetected, have the added challenge of ‘collecting trophies’ which, of course, includes the boxer shorts belonging to the handsome high school jock. In almost every movie, teenagers seem to have an uncanny design choice in that their bedrooms almost always boast of windows that lead out onto roofs, platforms, or porches which are perfect escape routes when need be and serve as a safe exit. This seems to be true, except when used by a non-popular character or when the threat of being found out needs to be posed.
What happens during the scavenger hunt I will leave to you to discover, if you are so unwise as to sit through this film when “Mean Girls” is still stirring around in theaters. One of the movie’s bizarre scenes features a 14 year old girl, Julie, trying to sneak into a bar because her scavenger hunt entails that she get a picture of herself being served a drink by an adult. It is ludicrous even if she is getting a Shirley Temple, but even weirder is the fact that the guy she picks is a teacher from her junior high. That man must live in a land of his own since he definitely does not understand the professional hazards that come with buying a drink in public for one of his underage students and then taking a picture with her as proof that he did.
Not every high school (or junior high) comedy has to be about a smart, creative, and articulate group of future leaders. Though, I do appreciate it when a movie tries to come up with something interesting for them to do or shows understanding to what they really are like. “Sleepover” is filled with characters who are not even a fraction as good or as interesting as the characters in other films, even those that are somewhat better. There was no reason for this movie to be made, and no reason why anyone would want to watch it.
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