Never Been Kissed

Directed by Raja Gosnell, Never Been Kissed follows mousy reporter Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) as she goes undercover within a local high school. It’s an unabashedly absurd premise that’s employed to watchable yet somewhat disappointing effect by Gosnell, as the filmmaker, working from Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein’s screenplay, delivers an oddly-paced and perpetually erratic endeavor that never becomes quite as easygoing as one might’ve anticipated – with the movie’s palpably overlong running time paving the way for a narrative rife with padded-out and downright needless sequences. (There is, for example, a party interlude that just seems to go on and on and on.) There’s little doubt, then, that Never Been Kissed’s mild success is due almost entirely to its star’s winning, charismatic efforts, as Barrymore turns in a magnetic performance that goes a long way towards compensating for the picture’s myriad of missteps. (It doesn’t hurt, either, than the actress has been surrounded by such talented, scene-stealing periphery players as Molly Shannon, John C. Reilly, and Garry Marshall.) By the time the feel-good finale rolls around, Never Been Kissed has cemented its place as a decent-enough endeavor that generally feels like it should be much, much better.

**1/2 out of ****