Review of Boys and Girls (2000) by Darren H — 01 May 2008

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

When Harry Met Sally for teens, November 8, 2004.

Misery loves company. I became addicted to this quirky, somewhat surreal romantic comedy when a long term relationship of mine ended. To watch Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani as long-time friends navigate through the minefield of failed relationships and teen angst only to eventually consider getting together themselves seemed like the perfect anecdotal medecine to relieve what I was going through at that time. Yes, it's ultimately a funny and touching drama that taps into that need for comfortable feel good stories to put the sparkle back into life. Really, it bears more than a striking resemblance to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY in both structure and themes. (Is it a surprise they are both favorites of mine).

Ultimately my favorite part of the movie is the first half. The movie starts with a young Ryan and Jennifer meeting for the first time on a plane from New York to Los Angeles. Their encounter remains so memorable that five years later Ryan recognizes Jennifer during a football game. As luck would have it the two also eventually end up both in college at Berkeley and bump into each other in a series of When-Harry-Met-Sally-esque encounters over a number of years.

Prinze definitely plays against type here, he doesn't play a hotshot high school football star but instead Ryan is a difficult, unsure teen attempting to make his way through an engineering degree and Forlani is the confident, assured college girl who has no trouble getting dates, but is unable to maintain any long-term commitment.

Providing possibly his funniest performance is Jason Biggs (of American Pie fame) who plays Ryans college roommate Hunter (well that's not his real name but he feels it sounds better when picking up girls). From his introduction - getting stuck in a storage case to his eventual success in the girl department - his all too rare screen moments provide some great humor and lend a certain charm to the movie giving it an edge over the adult movie that so clearly inspired it.

I've seen this movie numerous times, its one of my guilty pleasures that speaks to me on so many levels.

Incidently if you have seen this movie on television the chances are that you have not seen it all. I have seen "Boys and Girls" shredded to bits on network tv.