High school romance redux

Precisely when did Drew Barrymore blossom into one of our most beguilingly self-deprecating actresses? Within the past 12 months, little Gertie has endured labor pains (Home Fries), a scheming stepmother (Ever After) and Adam Sandler (The Wedding Singer)-this must qualify as some sort of cinematic triathlon. And in her newest vehicle, Never Been Kissed, Barrymore braves-nay, revels in-the agonies of adolescent insecurity, to delightful results; not since Joan Cusack in In & Out has an attractive woman made herself so gleefully graceless.

As Josie Geller, a timorous Chicago Sun-Times copyeditor, Barrymore affects a demure lisp and quails convincingly at the ranting of her workaholic superior (John C. Reilly)-"I can grab the bull by the balls!," she insists meekly, lobbying for a reporting opportunity.

Charged with infiltrating a high school in order to pen an expose on teenage culture (oh, that old assignment), Josie tackles her task with all the gusto she can muster, despite the admonitions of her slacker brother Rob (winningly played by Barrymore's Scream co-star David Arquette)-"Do you remember high school?" he asks. Sure enough, director Raja Gosnell stages recurrent flashbacks which reveal that Josie's teenage years indeed plumbed new depths of misery.

Though the opening scenes feel impatient and rushed, they do allow Saturday Night Live's Molly Shannon to wax amusingly vulgar as the office sexpot; besides, once Josie enrolls, Never Been Kissed hums along for a good half-hour as she quickly reestablishes herself as the class geek. ("What are your hopes and dreams?," our intrepid reporter earnestly demands of each fresh acquaintance.) We are introduced to the school's social echelons: the requisite Clueless clones; the bohemian intellectuals (led by Deep Impact's lissome Leelee Sobieski); and, most inventively, a pretty piece of smooth-chested Eurotrash named Guy (Jeremy Jordan, so unnervingly androgynous that his character's name doubles as a gender demarcation). Like any budding Casanova, Guy regularly exercises his charm mojo: "Are you special ed?," he asks Josie, only half-jokingly.

The film even has the canny conceit to equip Josie with a hidden camera so that her office-bound colleagues may survey her exploits à la Truman Show; this device yields sizable comedic dividends in a scene where Josie gazes plaintively into a restroom mirror, unaware that the word "LOSER" has been stamped on her forehead.

After an effervescent first act, however, the film takes several ill-advised turns, the most unsettling of which involves Josie's handsome English teacher (Michael Vartan), who exhibits definite extracurricular interest in our heroine (even though he believes her to be a 17-year-old). This relationship feels simultaneously contrived and inappropriate, and as the two make eyes at each other, the film's winsome daffiness quickly deflates, collapsing into queasy moral mire.

Never Been Kissed also errs in steering Josie into the ranks of the school's bitch-goddess elite-for one thing, her motives for 'crossing over' from geekdom are never clear; for another, Josie gains acceptance from her hipper-than-thou peers only after deploying brother Rob, who spreads favorable rumors about the new girl throughout the student body. The movie thus overtly suggests that popularity, even for the most hopeless subject, is only a hunky sibling away.

But Barrymore's intoxicatingly artless performance buttresses the film. Never Been Kissed deserves credit for its occasionally unflinching observations of adolescent brutalities: In one heartbreaking scene, the 18-year-old Josie is humiliated by the boy of her dreams, and director Gosnell effectively communicates her distress with one close-up of her tear-slicked face. This incident, more than any other in the film, exposes Josie's tender heart, and Barrymore sells it beautifully; forget Rachael Leigh Cook-it's Drew who's all that.