Review of SUGAR & SPICE

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Review by Mark Dujsik

The cheerleader-movie may be becoming a genre all its own. If it is, I will gladly say that Sugar & Spice is the best cheerleader-movie that could possibly be made. It’s wickedly funny, surprisingly smart, and includes a character who has a unabashed crush on Conan O’Brien. I liked it for the most part, but it sometimes falls flat.

The movie’s start is pretty simplistic: Diane (Marley Shelton) is the captain of the high school cheerleading squad. She and her fellow teammates are completely in tune with each other. They even get their periods at the same time. Diane meets the new captain of the football team Jack (James Marsden), and the attraction is immediate and mutual. They fall in love, she gets pregnant, and all of a sudden, no one understands their desire to start a family. They move into an apartment, and he gets a few jobs, none of which help provide for the two of them, let alone a baby. Then while watching Point Break with the squad, Diane gets an idea: they could rob a bank.

The setup here provides a perfect opportunity for cleverness, and the script by Mandy Nelson doesn’t disappoint. The movie takes this basic premise and quickly moves through a lot of attentive satire. I liked the way the squad research their technique by watching movies about robberies; I’m especially glad they included Heat on their list. The movie is fully aware of pop-culture references, and they flood through the script without hesitation. These girls are smarter than your average cheerleader-movie cheerleaders, and that’s one of the reasons this movie works.

The characters that make up the rest of the cheerleading squad are funny but forgettable. I enjoyed the comedy involving the extremely religious girl who learns the joys of horseback-riding, and the one who has a crush on Conan O’Brien is full of such commitment to her unlikely attraction, it works. There’s also a very scary scene involving the girl’s acquisition of guns. It’s frightening because it strikes true, but it’s amusing for the same reason. The scene works as comedy, but it also has much darker undertones to it. It works.

In fact, so much of the movie is effective, it’s difficult to explain what isn’t. I’ll try. First, Jack is so overly nice, it get annoying very quickly. I think of the jock character in Election as a comparison. He was also extremely nice, but he never got annoying. Maybe it’s the actor or maybe it’s the script, but for some reason, I really didn’t like Jack after a while. Secondly, and most importantly, the robbery itself is anti-climactic. It seems to come from nowhere, and the payoff isn’t completely satisfying. I would have liked to see more planning scenes and maybe some practice sessions. It’s a small complaint, but it does make a lot of difference.

Sugar & Spice is much better than it needed to be, and I wouldn’t persuade people to avoid it. It’s a very funny and very entertaining, if not ultimately, very forgettable movie.

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