Anyone who's conflicted about choices in life due to sudden twists of fate that render a previously well-charted plan handicapped should get a copy of Orange County (2002 make). I'm not a great fan of teen-movies, after having sourly disappointed by horror teen flicks (think I Know What You Did Last Summer bla bla) and stupid 'romance' stuff such as 'All She Wants' or even 'Ten Things I Hate About You'. Now actually, 10 Things I Hate About You was probably one of the better ones I've seen before, maybe due to its proximity to Shakespeare (it was, after all, some sort of adaptation of The Taming Of The Shrew)...
But that aside, go watch Orange County. Its the only teen flick that has led me to shed tears over choice (or rather, lack of it). It goes way, way down that lane where Murphy's Law seems to apply all the time. Yes, when things go wrong, they can get worse. Karma comes only after a long, long time. Here you have a smart, intelligent and brilliant kid who wants to go to Stanford, because he wants to become a writer. There you have his silly college counsellor sending in the worst student's transcript under his name, thus destroying his dreams in studying at THE university where dreams will come true. Add in a dysfunctional family and a crazy, lunatic drug misfit brother offering to drive him all the way to Stanford to help him beg for admission...who later ends up setting the Admission's Office on fire. Things go wrong, wrong, wrong all the way...
The message in this show is pretty thick in my opinion, although critics at
rotten tomatoes declare otherwise (then again, critics often think that they're too thick for everything else, and yeah, they often ask for too much) , especially for people standing at the crossroad's of their lives. Choices, and how things can still work out no matter what. Its really what you make of it.
Go watch it. I was lucky enough to get the wrong movie (now Orange County got into my collection due to another mix up ... I wanted X2 again you see) ... and its really a pleasant surprise. I'm keeping the show. Will watch it again. If only to let the little droplet of tear flow listening to Kevin Kline's great lines in the show.
