Wild Child
Cast: Emma Roberts, Natasha Richardson, Shirley Henderson, Aidan Quinn
Dir: Nick Moore
Rating: 3/5
Poppy (Roberts) is a spoiled Malibu brat, and the film opens with her wreaking havoc on her stepmother's moving-in day. Her father (Aidan Quinn) decides he's had it with her wild ways and promptly packs her off to an English boarding school.
Poppy arrives at Abbey Mount with blond extensions, a designer wardrobe, and plenty of attitude, and she is furious when she is forced to follow the school's strict code of conduct. She is determined to find some way back to sunny Malibu.
She soon befriends her roommates, a loyal, fun-loving troop of girls, who agree to help her come up with a way to get kicked out of school.
They devise a scheme for Poppy to get caught fooling around with the headmistress's (Natasha Richardson) son, Freddie (Alex Pettyfer), but things soon go awry when Poppy's rival Harriet (Georgia King) tries to step in and foil her plan.
Alright lets face it there is not a scrap of originality here, spoilt brat sent away from home will do anything to get home before 'finding herself 'and realising she wants to stay when she is on the verge of getting what she wanted in the first place.
Despite that it is an enjoyable watch, if you are prepared to accept it for what it is, maybe if you are not a fourteen year old female then it might not appeal but the teeny boppers are going to love it.
And that is who it's aimed at and it never pretends otherwise and it does, after a shaky start, turn out to be a half decent popcorn flick, however it could have done without the Spartacus moment.
The film's young cast are well as truly centre stage and Emma Roberts does well to lead them as the spoilt yet funny Poppy who, away from the peer pressures of her Malibu lifestyle transforms into the person she secretly always wanted to be.
Natasha Richardson isn't in any way shape or form stretched by her role as the headmistress but there are some great cameo performances from Shirley Henderson and Nick Frost.
In all this film knows it's target audience and will, without a shadow of a doubt, win them over. Plus is it wrong to think that Alex Pettyfer is a bit hot? Yes I think it probably is!
Wild Child is out on DVD 5th December
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw