Picture This

Picture This (2008)

--Stephen Herek

So, yeah, I watched this. The whole thing. Hahaha. I don't know why I'm drawn to ABC Family "original" movies, but I am. In my own defense, however, I didn't actually intend to really watch this one. I thought, okay, maybe I'll check out a few minutes, but then I'll move onto something else. Butttt, then I realized that Lauren Collins and Shenae Grimes from Degrassi are totally in it!!!!!!!! So suddenly I had to watch the whole thing. Which I did.

The basic plot is that this chick (Tisdale) has a crush on a guy, but she also has an overprotective father (Kevin Pollack) who calls her every 30 minutes to check in on her after he gets her a camera phone. Turns out that the guy she has a crush on is interested in her and invites her to a few things, including a huge party. But, she gets grounded and then has to make up elaborate scenes to capture on her phone so her father won't think she's attending a party. Also, the guys

kinda girlfriend/half-girlfriend or something tries to keep the two apart.

Anyway, it was an okay film. I mean, it was basically a watered down version of some teen film (any of them, just think about one and you'll pretty much get it). I was somewhat impressed by the fact that Tisdale actually produced this film. Apparently that allowed her to decide that her character needed to just be a normal girl, rather than the stereotypical geek. So, yay for her? Because this film would have been kinda wrong if she had been a geek and gone through some sort of transformation (and they always do). It wasn't that bad of a film.

I was really disappointed that her friends (i.e. the whole reason I was watching it!) were pretty much pointless. They really didn't have any lives of their own, which was sad. They just ran around trying to help her out. I mean, that's really nice of them, but it also shows shallow character development. Especially with Collins' character, who had some interesting clothing styles going on, but yet no explanation whatsoever for them. Collins and Grimes did a really good job with the acting though. It was interesting to see them together, because their characters on Degrassi never interact anymore. And they may not have in the first place, even though they dated the same guy. Awww, teen soap operas, how I love thee.

Kevin Pollack was pretty good too. He could have played that character a lot worse than he did. Somehow he managed not to come off as some sort of horrid dictator. But, without the good acting by some random people, the film wouldn't have had much, in my opinion. It was just all right. Nothing more than that.