Boys and Girls Synopsis: A friendship is put to the ultimate test when two best friends wind up in bed together.
I think that Boys and Girls was meant to be the When Harry Met Sally for the teen crowd. It stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani as Ryan and Jennifer, two very different people who meet as kids on a flight and then pop in and out of each others’ lives over many years, from high school to college. Jennifer is beautiful and confident, a non-believer in love but content with dating and one-night stands.
Ryan is studious, insecure, and more of a romantic looking for commitment. They don’t seem to have anything in common but for the college they both attend. When Jennifer is asked by her roommate Amy to break up with her boyfriend for her, that boyfriend turns out to be Ryan, and afterward, the two begin to spend time together, eventually becoming best friends.
Of course, there is the age-old question: can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way? It’s a question that must be answered when the two finally cross that line.
Despite the apparent elements lifted from When Harry Met Sally, this movie is nowhere near the level of that classic. Being a teenager during the ’90s, I will admit that I loved most of the teen comedies that came out during the latter part of the decade. Many starred Freddie Prinze Jr. and even Jason Biggs, who co-stars in Boys and Girls as Ryan’s roommate.
While teen rom-coms like She’s All That, Can’t Hardly Wait, and American Pie are not what many movie fans would call cinema, they were still enjoyable and funny to me, and still are, even if they don’t hold up as well as some others from that era. But I only vaguely remember seeing Boys and Girls back then, and after watching it again, I realized why. It’s a very cookie-cutter, formulaic teen rom-com, complete with the tried and true airport chase and public declaration of love. But it’s also missing any good laughs or passable chemistry between the two leads to make those cliches tolerable.
Though charismatic enough, Prinze Jr. gives the same nice guy performance one would expect from him, and Claire Forlani is relatively dull and wooden, reminding me of a younger Andie McDowell (that’s not a compliment). It felt like Boys and Girls wanted so desperately to be a clever, talky rom-com that would make Nora Ephron proud, but it had zero spark. Amanda Detmer and Biggs are there to provide some comic relief amongst the advice they dole out to their respective roommates, and for the most part, Biggs delivers. But that’s not saying much, and it’s definitely not worth watching the entire movie for a few amusing moments.
There is nothing original or interesting about Boys and Girls, and plenty of other teen rom-coms from the ’90s and early 2000s are worth watching over this one.
Watched: 01/06/2020
Notable Song: If I Don’t Tell You Now by Ronan Keating
