This is a very light movie about an unconventional teacher Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) who curses in class, drinks heavily, and takes drugs. During class she often falls asleep and just gets by with her classes by letting her students watch movies. Her problems start when she is dumped by her rich boyfriend after he learns she is just after his money. So she starts making the moves on another teacher Scott Delacorte (played by Justin Timberlake). But when her advances seem unnoticed by Scott, she decides to have breast implants. And since she cannot afford it, she participates in her 7th grade class fund raising activity with a sexy car wash. She also coerces her students’ parents to give her money for school supplies.
Later, she learns that the teacher with the highest state scores will get a hefty bonus so she changed her teaching style and made her students study vigorously for the upcoming test. But Halsey’s efforts to prepare her students were not enough so she decides to steal the exam by pretending to be a journalist and coerces/seduces the man in charge of the state exam. She also takes nude pictures of the poor guy as insurance in case she gets caught. One month later, Halsey wins the bonus and is seen next setting an appointment with the doctor for her breast implants.
Meanwhile, the guy she is eyeing becomes chummy with another teacher (Amy Squirrel) while a gym teacher (Russel Gettis) tries to court her. She then manipulates an upcoming field trip by putting poison ivy on an apple in Teacher Amy’s desk so she ends up as the class chaperone with Scott. During the field trip, she seduces Scott and they have sex with their clothes on. Squirrel finds out because Halsey calls her voice mail and leaves the phone on during their ‘sexual interlude’. During the field trip, Halsey advises one of her students to let go of a crush on another student because she is too superficial. Later on she realizes that she, too, has become superficial with her love interests.
Amy becomes mad as hell and so she switches Halsey’s desk with hers so she can have someone unlock it and search for some evidence that she won the bonus unfairly. She finds copies of the state exam and sets up a meeting for Halsey with the school principal and superintendent. But, Halsey is able to get off scot-free by blackmailing the guy who gave her the tests. Instead, she retaliates by saying that some teachers in the school are doing drugs and so the cops are called in with drug-sniffing dogs and they soon find drugs in Amy’s desk (which is actually Halsey’s). Amy is then moved to another school.
With Amy gone, Scott tries to make the moves on Halsey but she turns him down after realizing how superficial she has been and how she had a great thing going with the school gym teacher, Gettis. The film ends with Halsey shown going to class the next year without breast implants because she says she doesn’t need them. She is now kinder to her co-workers and is in a relationship with Gettis. She has also become the school’s new Guidance Counselor.
In all, I think the movie is good if you’re into funny and sexy movies, not really a highly recommended movie for kids because of the story’s sexual content and some profanity and reference to drug use. It is also not very good to show a story to kids about a teacher who thinks she can get away with being “bad” all the time since it may change their mind about their teachers. Diaz does not really come off as a good role model especially for kids who want to be teachers someday. Maybe, if the film opted to have Diaz suffer even a wee bit so she would be held accountable for her actions it would have made a just ending. I guess this movie would not sit at all well with all the hard-working and dedicated teachers out there because of the way they are depicted in this story. But hey, after all this is just a movie and all was done in the spirit of fun!
[photo grabbed from IMDB]
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