neumu [ cinematronic ]




	What A Girl Wants
	Dennie Gordon Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Eileen Atkins, Anna Chancellor, Oliver James, Jonathan Pryce 2003		"What a Girl Wants" is something special for tweener girls who don't miss an episode of TV's "Lizzie McGuire," and their older sisters who feel the same way about "Gilmore Girls." It's a well-made family film that shrewdly combines plot elements of "The Parent Trap" and "The Princess Diaries" with teenage romance, mild sitcom antics and the customary pop-tune soundtrack. The poised Amanda Bynes plays Daphne, vivacious daughter of free-spirited American singer Libby (Kelly Preston). After high-school graduation, Daphne decides to visit England to meet the British father she never knew. Daphne's noble, suave dad (Colin Firth), Lord Henry Dashwood, is unaware he even had a child. Henry and Libby were young lovers; she didn't suit his parents, so the family's craven advisor (Jonathan Pryce) convinced a secretly pregnant Libby to leave the UK for Henry's good. Arriving in London, the teen Daphne impairs Henry's budding political career, and infuriates his ambitious fiancée and her devious daughter. The cast gives this modern fairy tale more emotional complexity and warmth than one expects from such a film, but it's still happily-ever-after territory.