The teen takeover of entertainment and popular culture in the late \u201890s and early aughts was an insane moment in time. The meta-teen slasher flick Scream<\/em><\/a> (a Weinstein brothers production) got the ball rolling, leading the way for Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and *NSYNC to oversaturate the airwaves with their teen-friendly hits, Buffy the Vampire Slayer <\/em>and Dawson\u2019s Creek<\/em> to become appointment TV for the 13-and-up crowd, and multiplexes to get clogged with one film after another about teenagers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob and Harvey, once again, set things off with She\u2019s All That<\/em>, the smash Pygmalion<\/em> adaptation that\u2019s best known these days for getting a script polish from \u2014 of all people \u2014 M. Night Shyamalan<\/a> and spawning He\u2019s All That<\/em>, the Netflix remake that, when I first heard about it, I thought was a joke. The plays of William Shakespeare were reworked for adolescent audiences as well, from The Taming of the Shrew<\/em> turning into 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em> to Twelfth Night<\/em> reshaped as the Amanda Bynes vehicle She\u2019s the Man<\/em>. (It\u2019s worth noting that Julia Stiles became a recurring player in modern-day Shakespeare films, appearing in 10 Things,<\/em> the Othello<\/em> redo O<\/em> and \u2014 yes! \u2014 Michael Almereyda\u2019s Hamlet<\/em>. Once again, damn you, Roxana.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n That<\/em> screenwriter R. Lee Fleming, Jr. got with Miramax again to script yet another Bard-goes-to-high-school flick, the raucous rom-com Get Over It<\/em>. Future, intense character actor Ben Foster stars as the weirdly-named Berke Landers, a teenager who goes off the deep end when his childhood BFF\/girlfriend Allison (Melissa Sagemiller) breaks up with him and starts dating a British student (Shane West, tacking on a douchey accent) who\u2019s also the frontman for a boy band called the Swing Town Lads. (Their biggest hit: \u201cLuv S.C.U.D.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Landers finds out that Allison and her new beau are auditioning for roles in a musical version of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em> \u2014 titled A Midsummer Night\u2019s Rockin\u2019 Eve<\/em> \u2014 he plans to win her back by auditioning for the play as well. Before he can even process that this is, you know, stalking, he asks Kelly (Kirsten Dunst), the singer-songwriter sister of his horndog best friend (Colin Hanks) who\u2019s also auditioning to be in the play, for advice and pointers on how to land a part. Even though Kelly is a talented smokeshow (there\u2019s an obligatory bikini scene<\/a> that makes that quite clear) who could get any guy she wants, she starts getting feelings for this pitiful sonofabitch, who spends most of the movie getting injured or humiliated in some capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over<\/em> is littered with performers at the young, fresh-faced, Teen People<\/em>-era point in their careers, including Mika Kunis, Zoe Saldana and Sisqo, Mr. \u201cThong Song\u201d himself. But the constant scene-stealer in this cast is Martin Short, covered in flashy shirts and moussed-up hair (dude looks like a middle-aged guy trying to emulate Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath) as the pompous drama teacher who puts on the play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Teen comedy nerds may feel Over<\/em> is less a 21st-century revamp of Dream<\/em> and more of a ripoff of Better Off Dead<\/em>, that equally screwball \u201880s flick where John Cusack also played a high schooler whose life goes haywire after a breakup. LGBTQ director Tommy O\u2019Haver, who broke into the scene with the 1998 indie comedy Billy\u2019s Hollywood Screen Kiss<\/em>, does seem to get a kick out of giving his film a fantastical flair, whether it\u2019s creating daydreamy scenes where Landers imagines the characters acting out the play in a magical setting, or staging the play itself, a gaudy, campy affair that\u2019s more reminiscent of the mediocre stage production Christopher Guest\u2019s Corky St. Clair put on in Waiting for Guffman<\/em>. (After Over<\/em>, O\u2019Haver once again worked that flair for Miramax when he directed the Anne Hathaway fairytale Ella Enchanted<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as teen farces go, Over<\/em> is all over the gotdamn place. Fleming piles on the wackiness, making the story so broad and over-the-top that it often tips over into absurdist surrealism. This is immediately established in the opening credits<\/a>, where Landers is schlepping down the street after getting dumped (also carrying a box of his items that were at her place \u2014 wait, were these teenagers living together?) while early-aughts pop sensation Vitamin C (\u2018memba her?) is behind him, lip-syncing to Captain & Tennille\u2019s \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together\u201d as dancers and a marching band put on a madcap production number. (Vitamin C teams up with Sisqo for another production number during the end credits, where they do a cringey cover of Earth, Wind and Fire\u2019s \u201cSeptember\u201d<\/a> while Foster and Dunst try to stay in rhythm with the other dancers.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n With its collection of gross-out gags, almost-topless scenes and other randy bits, you immediately get the feeling that Over<\/em> was supposed to be a raunchy, R-rated comedy, Harvey and them\u2019s answer to American Pie<\/em>. You can also tell by the clumsy editing, ADR-ed dialogue that covers up curse words, and scenes that are obviously reshoots that somebody higher-up had a change of heart and wanted it to be more PG-13. The uneven, awkward pace makes it look like a film that doesn\u2019t know whether to play to dirty-minded teens or their younger, prepubescent siblings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over<\/em> was released in March of 2001, grossing $19.9 million, failing to recoup its $22 million budget. It looks like Miramax wanted to drop this into theaters, get whatever money they could and wash their hands of it completely. (When I scrolled through reviews \u2014 most of them bad \u2014 of the movie on Newspapers.com, I noticed that all of the reviews were printed after its opening day, which means that Miramax didn\u2019t hold any advance press screenings.) The cast doesn\u2019t seem to be that fond of it either; you\u2019d sooner see Dunst in interviews waxing nostalgically about her experiences making Bring It On<\/em><\/a>, The Virgin Suicides<\/em><\/a> or all the other teen films she did before this zany-ass mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Over<\/em> does have<\/a> its<\/a> fans<\/a>. The most famous of them is Daniel Radcliffe, who went on the Happy Sad Confused<\/em> podcast a couple years back<\/a> and made the case that it\u2019s a great comfort movie, as well as being one of the first things he and his girlfriend bonded over. Yes, Get It Over<\/em> was a misfire that occurred during that wild, weird Teen Renaissance. But, for some people \u2014 even Harry Potter \u2014 this version of Dream<\/em> is still a dream worth taking. Get Over It is <\/em>streaming on Paramount+<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>available to rent or buy<\/em><\/a>. (It\u2019s <\/em>streaming for free on Pluto TV<\/em><\/a>, but it\u2019s in Spanish.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/get-over-it2-1024x576.jpg\")
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