She’s All That
Robert Iscove (dir.) | film | 1999
My Fair Lady
George Cukor (dir.) | film | 1964
Mary Evans/MIRAMAX FILMS/Ronald Grant/Everett
Photo courtesy of Everett
Moving up in the high school pecking order is as challenging as changing social classes—or so it seems in She’s All That, in which Laney Boggs (Rachel Leigh Cook) makes the transition from geek to popular girl. Laney’s conversion is put into motion by a bet between friends, as is Eliza Doolittle’s escape from the lower classes in My Fair Lady. Pre-transformation Laney, wearing a ridiculous hat at her restaurant job, even resembles Eliza in her flower-selling days. She shines once she shucks her glasses and overalls, just as Eliza does when she trades her soot-stained coat for a ball gown.
Both movies acknowledge that change doesn’t come easily. Eliza shames herself at Ascot when she slips from perfect elocution as she urges a horse across the finish line, shouting “Move your bloomin’ arse!” For Laney, being in the in-crowd triggers a humiliating encounter with a queen bee and an attempted date rape. And in the end, while enjoying a romantic dance with the handsome jock Zack (Freddie Prinze Jr.), she remains clueless about which film character blazed the path for her: “I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman,” she breathes. “Except for the whole hooker thing.”