Of Wagon Wheels and Valley-speak
By Pat Low
A review of ‘Wild Child’
Chick flicks are my secret indulgence. I cave into them when I don’t have to pay for the ticket. Or when they screen it on the Disney Channel. Or when I find it in my younger brother’s external hard disk drive.
While it would do nothing for my reputation, I confess that I loved Clueless, Princess Diaries and Pride and Prejudice (oh yes, period costume chick flicks). There is something about easing into the couch, leaving your brains on the coffee table and feasting on trite, senseless offerings. Yes, some can be quite painful to watch. The better ones, however, can be quite enduringly pleasant. Like Working Title’s latest adolescent adventure, Wild Child.
Emerging from the cinema, I found myself saying things like “like, BTW FYI” and contemplating platinum blonde extensions. Wild Child ticks all the boxes of a feel-good chick flick—bad girl turns into a better person, finds romance with a really hot guy, has a gaggle of BFFs, does the whole quintessential makeover-plus-shopping thing. But more affectingly, the Nick Moore-directed, Emma Roberts-starring movie adds another dimension to my love for chick flicks: the clash of cultures provided by the promising premise of placing a Valley-speaking Californian brat in a stiff English countryside boarding school. It’s like Gossip Girl meets Harry Potter.
America vs Britain. California vs unidentified quaint English country. Unfettered hedonistic lifestyle vs old world charm and tradition. Designer togs vs charity shops. My last encounter with the clash of these two titans was via Fran Drescher on TV in The Nanny. Since then, I’ve witnessed Paris Hilton’s Gucci-shaded view of America and the onslaught of serials like The O.C. and Sex and the City, all of which further cements my perception that the United States is all about self-indulgence, materialism and excess. Girls like to be artificially tanned and speak a strange language. (Which is like, so totally true, beeyatch. I mean, like, that is so freakin’ awesome.) There, terms like ‘pescatarian’ and ‘vegan’, and religions like Kabbalah and Buddhism, are rad and cool. They are superficial, attention-grabbing, purchase-able and bright. Like platinum blonde hair extensions.
But in Blighty, where Robert’s character Poppy Moore is banished to by her father, it’s all dreary and old school. Quirky and charming. Old world values, manners and propriety. Humbled and simple. And in the midst of the culture wars, I found another reason for my love of chick flicks: the Wagon Wheel. Seriously, any chick flick that could give 15 seconds of screen time to extol the virtues of the puffy snack is worth epic amounts of win. I had first encountered them through a friend who was equally ecstatic about the mallow-filled biscuit. She had a display case full of them, all collected at annual Christmas pantomimes at the York Theatre in the UK, where Wagon Wheels were thrown to the audience as part of the performance. (They were however, later banned when deemed as potentially hazardous material, when it hit a member of the audience one fateful year. Possibly a non-Wagon Wheel fan.)
To me—and to most who would have grown up munching on Wheels—the biscuit, and the chick flicks that honour it, are symbols of warm, fuzzy goodness. Of course to others, both could be more akin to the suffocating kind of English boarding school where children are whipped and locked in cupboards or cellars. My David Bowie-worshipping friend concludes, for example, that the chip butty is not the sign of humble working-class Britain, but is in fact the product of modern day public school gluttony. So perhaps my enjoyment of chick flicks actually lies in the way cinema portrays its ‘reality’ behind the doors in the darkened hall. If this were America, I would sue. If this were Britain, I would apologise profusely. But this is Malaysia, so I will just indulge. Or do something to that tune.
WILD CHILD
Release Date
4 December 2008
Genre
Romance/Comedy
Director
Nick Moore
Cast
Emma Roberts, Alex Pettyfer, Natasha Richardson, Kimberley Nixon, Juno Temple, Shirley Henderson
Running Time
1 hour 38 minutes
Language
English
Classification
U
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