I Love You, Beth Cooper

Movie Grade: F

DVD Features Grade: F

Overall Grade: F

When older, nostalgic people say things along the lines of, “Movies just aren’t what they used to be anymore,” it is without merit. It stems from the fondness people find in retrospect, along with modern films like I Love You, Beth Cooper. Even after trying to figure out a set of films that are legitimately worse than this one, it falls to the bottom of the barrel, and pretty quickly at that. Considering that the film had a theatrical release, it's hard to believe that any company would invest the funds necessary to publicize this film, or even want there name and reputation attached to it.

This incredibly obvious coming-of-age teen comedy is about Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust),our archetypal nerdy protagonist. In an attempt to make sure that the girl of his dream girl, Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere), doesn’t leave high school not knowing he exists, he declares his love for her in his valedictorian speech at graduation. Along with that, he finally gets his feelings towards those he strongly dislikes, as well as his suspicions that his best friend, Rich (Jack Carpenter), is gay. Now that graduation is over, Denis not only has to face Beth and her friends, but her over-compensating soldier boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts), and all the other he offended in his speech.

As a party who finds most romantic comedies of this nature to be off-putting to begin with, I Love You, Beth Cooper may in fact be the worst of its kind. Every character is typical, all of the dialog is forced, and all of the situations are far too outrageous for their own good. The scene where Kevin and his army friends come to Denis’ house to trash the place is probably one of the best examples of this; particularly when Kevin finally corners Denis. When Kevin enters the room, Denis is armed with a light-saber replica, and Kevin quickly takes the arm off a skeleton and uses it like a nunchuck. Rather than hit Denis, he brandishes the weapon in the most elaborate way possible, by twirling it to show that he has expert training with weapons like that – you know, rather than actually use it.

The DVD even comes with an alternative ending, which is probably for when its viewers are ultimately unsatisfied. It would be great to be able to say that the ending turns the entire film around and makes it somewhat bearable in a bizarre twist, but remember, this is I Love You, Beth Cooper we’re talking about. The alternate ending gives a final showdown between Denis and Kevin where Kevin intends on drowning Denis in a lake by the Cabin the teens spend the night in. While Kevin turns away to see if the spot is deep enough – because you can tell

by looking over the side of the boat – Denis hits him with the ore and then brings his body back to land. It doesn’t make much sense though, because Kevin was planning on just dropping Denis in the lake and making him swim, in hopes that he would drowned. After Kevin falls in Denis decides that boats are over rated and jumps in the water and swims Kevin back to shore. If he could swim that well why did he have to even hit Kevin with the ore? Why not just jump off the boat and avoid possible backlash? Didn’t your father (Alan Ruck, or as you know him Camerom from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) teach you better than that?

The delete scenes continue the trend of the film, and of the majority of deleted scenes by being pointless. Obviously they wouldn’t be deleted if they had any massive effect on the narrative of the movie, but they could at least have a laugh or a different take on some sort of revelation. Being that the movie itself didn’t have laughs or revelations this wasn’t much of an option. We are left with more of the same shallow humor and characterisation as we had the first time around, with a mildly different spin on it; or just a slight moment added to a scene that couldn’t have gone by fast enough as it was.

I Love You, Larry Doyle is a feature with the Novelist/Screenwriter who discusses his process I in creating the story and his inspirations. If one was to watch this feature and not the film itself, they could easily see it as an interesting take on films in its genre with a lot to say. The problem is that the films attempt at mocking cliches is cliche within itself. It has all been done before, and done before that. The whole idea of parodying the teen comedy is nothing short of trite at this point. We Are All Different, but That’s A Good Thing is about all of the actors and their unique qualities, but the common factor in every one’s description is that they are talented. It’s strange, because it doesn’t show in their performances.

As a whole, the film is as intelligent and well written as the Peanut Butter Toast special feature, which has Paul Rust singing an improve song about – you guess it – peanut butter toast. In all of its attempts to mock conventions, the film just becomes exactly what it strives to taunt. IT isn’t even clear when it is being a parody or not because it all just seems so ordinary. If the film had to be summed up into one word, it would undoubtedly be “predictable”. From start to finish you can guess exactly what will happen next, and when you get it wrong it is

just because what happens is worse than you could ever imagine. I hate you, Beth Cooper.

Movie Grade: F

DVD Features Grade: F

Overall Grade: F