The first question I had when I started re-watching Jamie Babbit's But I'm A Cheerleader is whether, 15 years later, it would still hold up. The short answer is it actually holds up quite well, although its struggles with some issues that will always leave it as a worthwhile but somewhat minor film.
Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan, a bubbly cheerleader confronted by family and friends that suspect she is a lesbian. Although Megan denies it, the family sends her to a conversion therapy camp run by Cathy Moriarty and Rupaul (not in drag). There a cast of young men and women struggle to deny or hide their true identities so that they can graduate and be sent back home. If that sounds like the plot of a dark indie drama, rest easy. It's played purely as parody.
Lyonne's lead performance is mixed. She struggles to sell herself as a shallow cheerleader. Babbit is nonetheless able to create a believable and sensitive plot about Megan falling in love with a very different type of girl played by Clea Duvall. Babbit paints in bright pastels and her direction heavily calls to mind Wes Anderson's work, if less polished. While the young lesbian women are drawn as realistic, sympathetic characters, the young gay men are complete caricatures. The film works early on with some good jokes, and the Lyonne-Duvall romance works well, but the third act feels extremely rushed. Overall the good concept, colorful production design, and fun supporting performances help prop up a shaky script. Nonetheless, this is a mostly enjoyable movie that still holds up as a decent and always fun, if never hilarious, parody of the discredited gay conversion therapy movement.
Screened on Amazon Prime Instant.
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