She's the Man is a 2006 American romantic sport-comedy film directed by Andy Fickman, inspired by William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, and a remake of the 1985 film Just One of the Guys. The film stars Amanda Bynes, Channing Tatum, Laura Ramsey, and Vinnie Jones.
The film centers on teenager Viola Hastings who enters her brother's school in his place, pretending to be a boy, in order to play with the boys' soccer team after her team gets cut.
Plot
Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes) is a teenage girl who plays for Cornwall high school's soccer team until it gets cut. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Sebastian (James Kirk), is supposed to enroll in Illyria, an elite boarding school, but he secretly goes to London with his fledgling band instead. Viola agrees to cover for him and decides to pass herself off as Sebastian, in hopes of joining their boys' team and beating Cornwall to prove their coach and her cocky ex-boyfriend, Justin (Robert Hoffman), wrong. With the help of her stylist friend, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), she is transformed into "Sebastian" and attends Illyria in his place.
While moving in, she meets her roommate, Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum), an attractive soccer player and Illyria's team captain. During tryouts, Viola fails to impress Coach Dinklage (Vinnie Jones) and is assigned to second string, much to her dismay. Her teammates, including Duke, initially dislike "Sebastian" due to his awkward and strange behavior. However, with help from Paul once again, they begin to accept him into their social circle. "Sebastian" then gets the popular and pretty Olivia (Laura Ramsey) as his lab partner, which frustrates Duke, as he has feelings for her. "Sebastian" agrees to put in a good word for Duke if he promises to train him to be a better soccer player. Coach Dinklage eventually notices "Sebastian's" effort and improvement, thus promoting him to first string.
At the Junior League carnival, where her mother has made her volunteer, Viola works a shift at the kissing booth and shares a kiss with Duke. Duke expresses to "Sebastian" that he might move on from Olivia as he is starting to like Viola now. Viola is delighted as she secretly feels the same way.
Olivia who now has a crush on "Sebastian", asks Duke out on a date in hopes that it will make "Sebastian" jealous. Viola, who is unaware of Olivia's true intentions, is enraged instead because Duke has now abandoned his interest in Viola. When Viola finds out the truth, she encourages Olivia to tell Sebastian directly about her feelings.
The situation becomes even more complicated when the real Sebastian returns from London a day early, unbeknownst to Viola. As soon as he arrives at Illyria, Olivia confesses her feelings and kisses him. Duke, seeing this, believes his roommate has betrayed him. When "Sebastian" returns to their room, the two have an argument and Duke kicks him out. Viola oversleeps and misses the first half of the game, while the real Sebastian is mistaken for "Sebastian" and winds up poorly playing his sister's game instead. At half-time, Viola explains the situation to Sebastian and they switch places again.
Duke, still furious at "Sebastian", refuses to cooperate with him on the field. Determined to makes amends with Duke, "Sebastian" explains that he is actually Viola. Illyria wins the game when Viola scores a goal, finally humiliating Justin and the rest of the Cornwall boys.
Everyone at Illyria celebrates their victory over Cornwall, except for Duke who is hurt about Viola's deception. Viola introduces Sebastian and Olivia officially, and they begin dating. Viola and Sebastian's divorced parents also make up, exchanging contact information so as to be better parents towards their children. She invites Duke to her debutante ball, with an invitation delivered by Sebastian, now Duke's roommate. Still hurt, Duke doesn't respond to Viola's invitation, which devastates her. At the ball, Viola is skeptical that Duke will show up; she distracts herself by assisting Olivia, who is being escorted by Sebastian to the ball, and is touched when Paul asks to be her date. Her mother shows up with a dress that will suit Viola's "no ruffles" policy, but Viola decides to go for a walk instead. She runs into Duke outside, who tells her that he has feelings for her, but that he doesn't want there to be any more deception on her part; Viola promises to be honest with him. Later, we see Monique being escorted by Justin, Olivia being escorted by Sebastian, and Viola and Duke enter the stage late, but together, with Viola in her new dress, much to the joy of her mother. Viola and Duke share a kiss before joining the crowd. At the end of the film, Viola and Duke are shown happily playing on Illyria's soccer team together.
Cast
- Amanda Bynes as Viola Hastings
- Channing Tatum as Duke Orsino
- Laura Ramsey as Olivia Lennox
- Robert Hoffman as Justin Drayton
- Alex Breckenridge as Monique Valentine
- Brandon Jay McLaren as Toby
- Clifton Murray as Andrew
- James Kirk as Sebastian Hastings
- David Cross as Principal Horatio Gold
- Vinnie Jones as Coach Dinklage
- Emily Perkins as Eunice Bates
- John Pyper-Ferguson as Roger
- Julie Hagerty as Daphne
- Lynda Boyd as Cheryl
- Jonathan Sadowski as Paul Antonio
- Amanda Crew as Kia
- Jessica Lucas as Yvonne
- James Snyder as Malcolm Festes
- Robert Torti as Coach Pistonek
- Mark Acheson as Groundskeeper
Reception
Box office
The film opened at #4 at the North American box office making $10.7 million USD in its opening weekend. Its budget was approximately $20,000,000. She's the Man grossed a total of $33.7 million domestically with a total gross of $57.2 million worldwide.
Critical response
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave She's the Man a rating of 43%, indicating generally negative reviews, based on 109 critiques. The critical consensus reads, "Shakespeare's wit gets lost in translation with She's the Man's broad slapstick, predictable jokes, and unconvincing plotline." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 55 out of 100 based on 28 reviews. Despite the harsh reviews, the film has gone on to become a cult classic.
See also
- Hana-Kimi
- Dil Bole Hadippa!, a Bollywood adaptation of the same story.
- Just One of the Guys
References
External links
- Official website
- She's the Man at the Internet Movie Database
- She's the Man at Rotten Tomatoes
- She's the Man at Metacritic
- She's the Man at Box Office Mojo