All about boys
Deborah Ross
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging 12A, Nationwide
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is a teen movie as may be rather obvious from the title — come on, it was hardly going to explore the terrible reality of Bosnia’s post-war traumas; get a grip — and we are all for teen movies, aren’t we? A teen movie may at least get a teen out of the house. The boys are OK. They sleep most of the day and then go on the internet. But the girls! They can’t go anywhere if their hair isn’t right and it’s no good saying, ‘It looks perfectly all right to me,’ because then it’s, ‘What do you know about hair?’ and so you say, ‘I’ve had hair for quite a few years now, actually, young lady,’ and so they say, ‘Yes, but ... LOOK AT IT!’ This is why it is good for teen girls to have movies to go to. It doesn’t stop their mothers wanting to kill them, but it can delay things by 90 minutes or so.
Anyway, Angus, Thongs etc., etc. — I can hardly bear to type it again; too old; too tired — is not just another teen movie, because that was Not Another Teen Movie, but it’s produced and directed by Gurinder Chadha, whose previous films are Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice. This made me think it might be interesting although, thinking about it now, I’m not sure why. Bend It was OK-ish while the wittiest thing about Bride & Prejudice was the title. Still, it is a good title. Bride & Prejudice I don’t mind typing that. Not like Angus ... nope, still too old, too tired.
The film, which is based, apparently, on the best-selling series of books by the British author Louise Rennison, opens in Eastbourne to the pumping sound of the Scouting For Girls hit ‘She’s Lovely’. See, I know cool bands and their hits. Or, as I keep saying to my own teens, ‘Actually, I’m not as old and tired and boring as you might think. In fact, last week I almost didn’t go to John Lewis for a whole morning.’ Anyway, our heroine is 14-year-old Georgia Nicolson (Georgia Groome), who is first seen running down a street in a flurry of tears and dressed as a stuffed olive. Groome previously played runaway Joanne in London to Brighton — a tremendous performance — and she is a gorgeous talent, very winning. Without her, this film would be a great deal less and as there is so little to it anyway, that would matter quite a lot.
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The story is as these stories are, and follows Georgia as she attempts to woo Robbie, the new ‘sex god’ at school, away from the bitchy, blonde looker Lindsay. Meanwhile, she has to deal with her father’s possible move to New Zealand and worries that her mother is having an affair with a hunky builder. She also worries that her nose is too big. It’s a comedy, and it’s all here: squeezing spots, boys, stuffing bras, boys, the perfect outfit, boys, kissing techniques, boys, bitchy girls, boys and, in the end, landing yourself with a place at Oxbridge to study medicine. Maybe not. The aim is only ever to land — yes! — a boy. I sometimes wonder if feminism ever happened or I just dreamed it. Were we as dumb at 14? Was I? I don’t know. I know only that I’ve had my hair a long time since then, and just LOOK AT IT! There really is no excuse.
Fair’s fair, there are some nice moments. There is a nice moment when Georgia, dressed as that olive, turns up at the fancydress party to find that her friends haven’t also come as hors d’oeuvres as promised. ‘I just didn’t know how to be a vol-au-vent,’ explains one. I loved her little sister, Libby, whose passion is dressing up their cat, the name-checked Angus. There’s an interesting tip, too. Apparently, if you sit on your hands until they go numb and then grope your own ‘bazomkas’ — as the girls call their breasts — it feels as if someone else is
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doing it. I’ve since tried it and it does feel as if someone else is doing it. ‘Get off,’ I had to shout at myself, ‘and keep your hands to yourself!’ All in all, Angus etc. is inoffensive and perfectly watchable but it is also, perhaps, rather superfluous. We’ve seen it all before and it never has you guessing. It’s not exactly Gregory’s Girl. Still, if it gets the teen girls out from under our feet, then it’s a good thing, surely. Alternatively, give them a tenner, drop them at Topshop, and if it’s a Tuesday they won’t come out until a week on Thursday. That always works, too.
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