Review of But I'm a Cheerleader (2000) by Barbara D — 15 Jun 2012

Jamie Babbit's But I'm A Cheerleader has that same low-key, under-directed weirdness that would later become so well known in Napoleon Dynamite. That also means it could be too weird for some viewers.

But I'm A Cheerleader is a quirky cult comedy about a teenage girl who is sent away to True Directions, a "gay therapy" camp after her parents and friends become suspicious that she is not like other girls.

The characters throughout the film are mostly stereotypical, which would normally take away from the effectiveness (and maybe in some ways it does), but the film exists in such a weird, hyper-exaggerated world, that it becomes easy to overlook that fact out of sheer curiosity.

Natasha Lyonne is great in the title role, playing the character's passive confusion with what feels like a drug-addled haze. It is Clea Duvall as the love interest, the egg that True Directions has been unable to crack, who brings the film together with a bit of a human center.

In the end, the love story is surprisingly sweet and effective, even when the satire is sometimes lazy.