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Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging: Charity Screening

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Cert: 12A

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Dir: Gurinder Chadha. Cast: Georgia Groome, Aaron Johnson, Alan Davies

 

Description: Georgia Nicholson is a typical 14-year-old: permanently embarrassed by her loved-up parents, desperate to fit in at school and frustrated by her inability to find a boyfriend. Thankfully, she has her best mates, the Ace Gang - aka Jas, Rosie and Ellen - to lift her spirits. When handsome brothers Tom and Robbie move to the area, Jas sets her sights on Tom while Georgia vows to win the heart of sex god Robbie. Unfortunately, her sworn enemy on and off the hockey pitch - the blonde and popular Slaggy Lindsay - also has designs on the new boy.

Country: UK. 2008. 100mins

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Growing up is so much harder to do

 

Lip service: Georgia (Georgia Groome) gets some snogging practice

Spying: school girls turn detective

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Those constrained to cross the road when a group of teens progresses towards them on the pavement will be much comforted by Gurinder Chadha's tale of the Ace Gang, a posse of 14-year-old girls trying to grow up "beyond the valley of the fab and into the universe of marvy".

There is no swearing in the film and no one carries a knife. There is no mention of drugs, no one has sex and thus there are no unwanted pregnancies. This is a microcosm of society that's about as threatening and disturbing as a scouts' tea party. You might almost call it a feelgood companion piece to Mamma Mia! - though none of the girls sing Abba.

The central character is Georgia ( Georgia Groome), whose chief thoughts in life are that her parents are daft ancients and to be disregarded. her dual aims are to land a handsome sex-god as her boyfriend and to persuade Mum and Dad (Karen Taylor and Alan Davies) to give her the greatest 15th birthday party bash at the local nightclub. she and the gang are at school in a town that seems to be a combination of eastbourne and Brighton and, when two sexy hunks with nice bottoms appear, the one she wants is grabbed by her arch rival, slaggy (Kimberley Nixon), who wears a padded bra and sneers at everybody.

Georgia sets to work to persuade Robbie (Aaron Johnson) that she's the one for him, even taking snogging lessons from a fellow pupil, who stops his clock when the session is finished like a youthful psychiatrist. she also inadvisedly dyes her legs orange.

But things don't run smoothly. When dad decides to take a job in New Zealand and Mum seems open to the charms of Jem (Steve Jones), a midthirties builder who is nevertheless a hottie, Georgia feels the whole world is caving in. Angus, by the way, is a snarly cat and it's mother who wears the thongs.

The film is a gentle romantic comedy, whose title was changed from Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging (as the novel on which it is based is called) so as not to offend American audiences. But it couldn't possibly offend anyone, since these kids are so unlike the beastie boys and girls of tabloid imagination that you scarcely recognise them as modern children.

It is well played by its cast and well constructed by Chadha, who made her name with Bend It Like Beckham. She seems to believe that teen and pre-teen life may be troublesome but isn't really all that difficult to encompass with goodwill and luck. The sex is limited to tongue-in-cheek stuff ( literally) and bit of off-screen breast fondling.

I hope this is not a pipe-dream, but I have the suspicion that it may be, even in Eastbourne, where people are said to go to die and the young are consequently less aware of the nasty things the headlines often warn us about.

This is all pleasant enough, but I can't quite believe it. The only comeuppance for slaggy, the villain of the piece, is to have her breast enhancers rudely pulled off in a final scene which has the handsome boys providing a pop rock accompaniment to Georgia's rapturous birthday party.

The whole school attends, Mum's apparent new squeeze turns out to be gay and everything is hunky-dory after all. It's a bit like a sop for a nervous public than a true reflection of what might really happen to the Ace Gang as they desperately try to grow up. Even in Eastbourne.

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