Review of What a Girl Wants (2003) by Esther L — 10 Jul 2011

I thought this was a really cute movie. Although it's defiantly predictable, the cast of well known actors and actresses makes this a great feel good film. The story line follows a young American girl named Daphne Reynolds (played by Amanda Bynes) whose mother Libby (Kelly Preston) fell in love with an aristocratic young Englishman, Lord Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth) in her youth but who was separated from him by family and social pressures. Daphne has dreamed of being reunited with her father, and so she sets off for London in search of him. That's not difficult, as he is running for Parliament and campaigning everywhere.

Daphne discovers that he is soon to be married to a snobby young Englishwoman (Anna Chancellor) with an equally ambitious and even more conceited daughter (Christina Cole). Neither of them can stomach Daphne's surprise arrival and will do everything they can to undermine Daphne's relationship with her new found dad. Apart from that this high-spirited young American is not well-suited to life among the prim and proper expectations of the British upper class and lots of mini-disasters occur as her father tries to introduce her to English society.

On the whole, I did enjoy this film very much, because Amanda Bynes is adorable and the chemistry between she and 'Dad' Firth seems natural and unforced. I was especially delighted to see the usually staid Colin Firth with new moves - the dance-in-the-mirror scene, for one in which he dons a t-shirt and tight black leather pants while playing an air guitar. Then there is a cutie musician named Oliver James as Ian Wallace who sang the songs Long Time Coming and Greatest Story Ever Told, which were on the film's soundtrack.