Without doubt, this is a not good film, but it is not a particularly poor film either. It has stupid characters and bits of plain stupidity, such as vomiting over a guy having hair on his back, but the film does have enough going for it that it works as lightly amusing stuff. If not worth watching twice, there's enough to give it at least one go, especially for fans of Patricia Arquette. As the main character's best friend, Arquette adds a lot of dimension to her character. Although she is sexy and appears well educated in such areas on the outside, she is actually naive and innocent on the inside, and unaware of so much in the adult world. Arquette is certainly a radiant light in the film's cast, which includes Dennis Cole in a terrible performance playing a typical sleaze-bag with no dimension at all. The acting of the film is not terribly good in general, but Arquette is excellent and Tricia Leigh Fisher in the lead has a few earnest moments when her face is not covered up by overdone makeup.
The other aspect of the film that causes it to rise above the lemon mark is the music. The title song is excellent and the music is generally bouncy throughout in a playful way, like during the tennis matches, and it is in a fashion that captures the rebellious, "in it just to have fun" attitudes of the 1980s perfectly. All that said, it is still bad film, if not a terrible one. There are so many over-the-top racial stereotypes, especially Swedish, that it goes beyond being funny and just becomes stupid. There is also some awful narration by an ageing character added in for the sole purpose of adding a lame joke to the end of the film when the narrator is revealed. The narration is clumsy and serves no purpose in advancing what is being shown. For example, he says "here come the sisters" as the two sisters in the film rock up to the school. Overall, this may not be terrible, but neither is it a good film. It is amusing towards the end and it has a few virtues that prevent it from being absolute trash, plus a memorable line "A rose, bud?" - but that is not quite enough to make it great viewing.
The other aspect of the film that causes it to rise above the lemon mark is the music. The title song is excellent and the music is generally bouncy throughout in a playful way, like during the tennis matches, and it is in a fashion that captures the rebellious, "in it just to have fun" attitudes of the 1980s perfectly. All that said, it is still bad film, if not a terrible one. There are so many over-the-top racial stereotypes, especially Swedish, that it goes beyond being funny and just becomes stupid. There is also some awful narration by an ageing character added in for the sole purpose of adding a lame joke to the end of the film when the narrator is revealed. The narration is clumsy and serves no purpose in advancing what is being shown. For example, he says "here come the sisters" as the two sisters in the film rock up to the school. Overall, this may not be terrible, but neither is it a good film. It is amusing towards the end and it has a few virtues that prevent it from being absolute trash, plus a memorable line "A rose, bud?" - but that is not quite enough to make it great viewing.