Film Reviews

Slap Her, Shes French

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Brandon Smith
• Details: US / 93 mins / (12PG).

Although this film may boast one of the more interesting titles of the year, that's about the extent of the innovation in this tired genre comedy. A suitably idiotic premise sees airhead, bitchy beauty Starla (Jane McGregor) winning a local beauty pageant and in order to increase her chances of getting a job on television, she takes in a mysterious French foreign exchange student, Genevieve LePlouff (Piper Perabo). At first everything seems to be perfect, Starla takes Genevieve under her wing and shows her the way things work in her Texas town, but the latter isn't quite as innocent as she seems, and soon the beauty queen is regretting being so open with her guest.
The filmmakers may claim otherwise, but Slap Her is essentially an enthusiastic if uninspired teen comedy. Thankfully, things don't descend into gross out farce, but the film's humour lacks sparkle, preferring to trade off a host of cliches regarding French people and their accents. Too bad the script's not up to much because McGregor does show a bit of comic potential. Perabo, on the otherhand, possesses about as much charisma as an ironing board.

Review by Garreth Murphy