Get Over It

A host of attractive young performers go more or less to waste in “Get Over It,” a comedy marked by a surprising amateurism in both writing and execution. I have nothing against teen comedies. In fact, I like them quite a bit if they are funny and show off their stars to good advantage (think “American Pie,” “Go!,” “Road Trip”) but a bad teen comedy is no better than any other bad movie. It’s just more juvenile. The idea of blending a Shakespeare play with events surrounding a production of it is a fine one and has been utilized to good effect in the past (“Shakespeare in Love” is the most obvious example). “Get Over It” (whose title, so far as I can tell, has to do with the advice the leading man receives from his friends in the wake of a failed relationship) tries this tactic, utilizing a high school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (recast as a musical) as its focal point.

But the movie winds up at the level of a Saturday morning cartoon, with some half-heartedly bad language and sexual innuendo thrown in. Berke (Ben Foster) is feeling blue after being dumped by his girlfriend Allison (Sagemiller), who takes up with a British accented poseur who calls himself Striker (West). In an attempt to win her back, Berke joins the cast of the high school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in which Allison and Striker are performing. Thus we have a setup in which Berke and Striker compete for the affections of Allison, just as Lysander and Demetrius compete for Hermia in Shakespeare’s play. In both cases, the men must learn where their true hearts’ desires lie.

Meanwhile, Berke starts spending time with Kelly (Dunst, the putative star of the movie, or at least the best known of the performers), the sister of Berke’s best friend, and another cast member. She offers to help Berke prepare for his role, but we know from the start that she has a crush on him. Furthermore, we know from the start that it will take Berke the duration of the entire movie to realize that she is The Girl For Him. Dunst, who started out as a child model and has a surprisingly long filmography, starred in the equally teen oriented and only slightly better “Bring It On.” She has a pleasant screen persona and can probably act, but here she must rely on her sweetness and charm, since the script doesn’t give her any help at all. Ben Foster may have the least charisma of any leading man I’ve ever seen. He might do better in a role that demands more out of him than sheepish looks, which is pretty much the extent of what he delivers in “Get Over It.” What life there is in the picture is provided by the always reliable Martin Short, who is probably the best comic actor to never appear in a good movie.

He brings such impeccable comic timing and attitude to the role of drama teacher Dr. Martin-Oates that the rest of the cast should have taken notes. In the end even Short is not enough, because the picture really does have the slapdash feel of an amateur production, and that’s not meant as a compliment. The dialogue is, for the most part, atrocious; guys calling each other “dude” is about the high end of things. The rest of the humor is no better, tending towards the likes of gags about a horny dog. The fantasy sequences are so cheesy looking that I could not tell if they were meant ironically or not, and the one attempt at whimsy that almost works (a musical parade after Berke gets dumped) is quickly forgotten. Even the songs that are composed for the play are trite and amateurish; it might have helped if they had done something really inventive with them. The movie seems like it’s sending itself up, a tactic which backfires badly. Note to makers of future teen-oriented movies: teenagers, like all people, may do dopey things at times, but depicting them as actual dopes doesn’t make for a better movie, and it won’t win you any fans, either. (3/25/2001)