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Starring Lynn Redgrave, Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffman, Heather Mattarazzo, Monica Keena, Merritt
Weaver, Rachel Leigh Cook, Tom Guiry, Mathew Lawrence. Directed and Written by Sarah Kernochan.
In 1963 New England, Odette (Hoffman) was caught trying to arrange a tryst with her boyfriend (Lawrence), so her parents have sent her to an exclusive, all-girls prep school to help her avoid life's big temptation. And she doesn't like her new surroundings or her new roommates much - Tinka (Keena), a boy-crazy cutie who describes her goals as "actress/folk singer/slut" and Verena (Dunst), an intelligent hell-raiser responsible for most of the breakdowns in discipline on campus. But eventually, relations thaw when Tinka and Verena, along with Momo (Wever), a brainy, budding scientist and Tweety (Mattarazzo), a shy and insecure who regularly binges and purges, before anyone heard the word bulimia, invite Odette into their exclusive club. They meet in the attic above the school, chowing down on ravioli, and engaging in lots of girl talk ranging from politics, teachers, ambitions to boys. Their motto is "no more white gloves", which basically means no more polite, dutiful little girls that just search for Mr. Right, produce kids and work at the P.T.A. Their main nemisis is nine-times-elected hall monitor Abby (Cook) who dutifully sucks up to the administration (and her parents), over-using her power to maintain order at the school. Well, the girl's school is physically falling apart, and for years they've been unable to raise sufficient funds. Tweety overhears a board of trustees meeting where they decide to amalgamate with a nearby boys prep school. Their headmistress Miss McVane (Redgrave) is dead set against the idea, worried that the boys and their administration will slowly but surely begin to dominate the girls. To test the waters, the trustees have arranged for the young men to be bused over for a dance to get to know the girls. The five girls meet in their attic to discuss this crisis. Tweety and of course Tinka don't mind the idea so much. But Momo is worried that the boys will make it harder for her to get into MIT. And Verena, with fresh memories of her parent's divorce, considers the school her home, and doesn't want to see herself and the rest of the girls wasting their time getting dolled up and dumbing down to impress the boys. Odette is torn, but figures the amalgamation is an inevitable sign of the times. So alone, Verena and Momo plot a way to turn the dance into a fiasco to convince the trustees amalgamation is a bad idea. Eventually, the girls go on "strike" to demand a vote in the future of their school. Strike! (originally titled The Hairy Bird) is a coming-of-age story in the Animal House vein, but from a girls point of view, and with much less of the vulgar histrionics. As such, it is somewhat less funny, but far more intelligent. It is a curious mix of styles. Starting with light comedy, and good natured hijinks, it moves into strong commentary on how boys and girls in high school mix, and whether all-girls schools are still relevant. The scene in the attic between the five girls discussing whether amalgamation would be good or not is among the best in the movie. The writing is strong, the ideas are well presented, and the young actresses (especially Dunst) are quite good. The arrival of the boys and the resulting mayhem is generally good-natured and fun, but the film soon turns silly, where plot contrivances, hokey events and forced Disneyesque happy endings rule the day. For example, as the girls begin their strike, the cops arrive to break in to the building. And how are they stopped? Odette leads about a dozen of the girls on horseback in perfectly matched riding gear to ride to the rescue and stand in front of the dorm to block their entrance, as if that would really stop them. Several characters, especially Verena and Abby, drastically change their basic characters that have been previously developed with little foundation or motivation. And in the tradition of bad kids sitcoms, all adults (except Miss McVane) including the boys school administration, the security guards, the board of trustees and the girl's parents are vapid, stupid carricatures who need correction by their much wiser kids. Of course, the movie is targeted at the pre-teen and teen female audience, so the rather simplistic happy ending is not totally unexpected. But because of the well-written and thoughtful first half it is a bit of a shame the latter half could not match the promise of the first. But the movie is still worth seeing because of the good-natured and charming interaction of the girls, and the generally fine performances of most of the cast. Redgrave brings considerable depth and feeling to the headmistress dedicated to her school, and to making sure girls don't feel secondary to boys in their education. Dunst is excellent as the feisty and a bit angry girl who hates school, but loves the people there. Her best dialogue tells how the object of the finishing school is to make the girls ready to be married into money, have kids, the colonial house, "and then you're finished." Hoffman is quietly natural and projects inner strength. Wever is also quite good as the brainy and intelligent young woman with lofty ambitions in the male-dominated world of science. It's being promoted as a good date movie, and it is. It's aimed at the female population, but if you're a guy, the guy-bashing is minimal, the syrupy romantic stuff is virtually non-existent, and if you dragged your girlfriend to such lofty fare as Godzilla and Armageddon, you owe her.  
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