Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging – Tiger, Tangas and French Kissing (2008)

Directed by: Gurinder Chadha | 100 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Georgia Groome, Eleanor Tomlinson, Aaron Johnson, Alan Davies, Karen Taylor, Tommy Bastow, Sean Bourke, Liam Hess, Manjeeven Grewal, Georgia Henshaw, Kimberley Nixon, Eva Drew, Matt Brinkler, Steve Jones, Tamara Notcutt, Ingrid Oliver, Chris Wilson

First the mysterious title of this film. Angus, that’s main character Georgia’s cat; thongs are thongs and snogging is British for kissing. You guessed it: we ended up in a teen movie. And quite a fun one, although the esophagus threatens to start making anti-peristaltic movements in the first minutes because of the amount of hyper-realistic puberty and incorrectly depilated eyebrow hairs that we get poured over us. Being a teenager is a crisis, but looking at teenagers is possibly even worse. Luckily we still have our savings.

Anyway. Our Georgia, not too pretty but blessed with a charming big mouth and three loyal friends, is bickering through life. And of course there is a problem. Vader – a somewhat tame old-timer who-self-declares the opposite; played by television comedian Alan Davies – is offered a job in New Zealand just as my daughter’s first kiss arrives. Quick practice on the ‘saliva king’ of the schoolyard (Liam Hess) then, and not wanting to move to steal ‘sex god’ Robbie (Aaron Johnson), who naturally plays in a band, from the baddest slut in town (Kimberley Nixon). So much for the teenage suffering from the first twenty minutes of this film, which is reminiscent of ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ in terms of style and feel-good content.

However, the critics’ grief should not be underestimated either; especially about the poor acting around lead actress Georgia Groome. And we don’t fall out of our chair in terms of content either; what was previously announced as an ‘Adrian Mole (the pimple king from the diaries) for girls’ turns out to be a fairly classic – and in terms of language typically British – teenage film for first graders. Classic, that is to say: well and enthusiastically performed, especially due to the presence of Georgia Groome, who has to shake off some trepidation but still finds the balance between tough and girly, shy and foul-mouthed. Not that it’s a lot of work and that the road there is particularly difficult, but in the end you wish Georgia the luck. And that’s the point. Of course everything will be fine.