She’s the Man

Amanda Bynes, before she seemed to follow the path of Lindsay Lohan, was one of my favorite actresses and her movies always made me believe that normal people could have extraordinary things happen to them in their lives.

Like getting to make out with Channing Tatum.

She’s the Man is a hilarious movie with a true and powerful moral, just because you’re a “girl” doesn’t mean you can’t play with the big boys. When Viola Hastings learns that the girls’ soccer team will be cut she decides to try out for the boy’s team, only to be flatly refused by the sexist coach. To add insult to injury her boyfriend, Justin (Robert Hoffman), recants on all of the things he told her about how good she was (including that she was better than half of the boy’s on their team), Viola comes up with the logical plan of taking on her twin brother’s identity. This is made possible, initially, because Sebastian (James Kirk) is already playing on their parent’s divorce to go to London for a music contest and asks her to pretend to be mom and say he’s sick. Viola’s plan is far more entertaining of course, so she enlists the aid of her stylist, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) and goes to Illyria as Sebastian.

It is here that Viola, as Sebastian, meets Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum) and his friends Toby (Brandon Jay McLaren) and Andrew (Clifton Murray) who are all on the soccer team. On her first day as Sebastian, she also meets the beautiful, perfect, and intelligent Olivia (Laura Ramsay). With a few more characters, as such as the bitchy Monique (Alex Breckenridge) and the awkward Eunice (Emily Perkins) we can now officially enter the love dodecahedron. And this is one that could give Degrassi a run for it’s money.

Viola likes Duke who thinks she’s Sebastian, so he’s crushing hard on Olivia who is in love (or something) with Sebastian who is really Olivia who is trying to avoid Monique who is Sebastian’s (the real one) ex-girlfriend and so Viola (as Sebastian) must avoid Olivia’s affections because she wants to be on the soccer team but she (Viola) is now crushing hard on Duke who thinks she’s Sebastian. There. Did that all make sense?

On top of the twin switch, Viola must contend with her mother and her strange obsession with ignoring everything that Viola actually loves to do in favor of debutant brunches and cotillions. Viola must meet all of her commitments as Viola while still trying to prove that she is more than capable of being on the boy’s team at Illyria.

Throw in a couple of fights and you have yourself an entertaining evening. This is a comedy of epic proportions that makes me absolutely hope that Amanda Bynes goes back into acting, she’s good at it and she should never stop doing it.