All about boys

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
12A, Nationwide

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is a teen movie as may be rather obvious from the title — come on, it was hardly going to explore the terrible reality of Bosnia’s post-war traumas; get a grip — and we are all for teen movies, aren’t we? A teen movie may at least get a teen out of the house. The boys are OK. They sleep most of the day and then go on the internet. But the girls! They can’t go anywhere if their hair isn’t right and it’s no good saying, ‘It looks perfectly all right to me,’ because then it’s, ‘What do you know about hair?’ and so you say, ‘I’ve had hair for quite a few years now, actually, young lady,’ and so they say, ‘Yes, but…LOOK AT IT!’ This is why it is good for teen girls to have movies to go to. It doesn’t stop their mothers wanting to kill them, but it can delay things by 90 minutes or so.

Anyway, Angus, Thongs etc., etc. — I can hardly bear to type it again; too old; too tired — is not just another teen movie, because that was Not Another Teen Movie, but it’s produced and directed by Gurinder Chadha, whose previous films are Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice. This made me think it might be interesting although, thinking about it now, I’m not sure why. Bend It  was OK-ish while  the wittiest thing about Bride & Prejudice was the title. Still, it is a good title. Bride & Prejudice I don’t mind typing that. Not like Angus…nope, still too old, too tired.

The film, which is based, apparently, on the best-selling series of books by the British author Louise Rennison, opens in Eastbourne to the pumping sound of the Scouting For Girls hit ‘She’s Lovely’.