Sydney White

Sydney White

Time for a Romantic Comedy. This time it's Sydney White with Amanda Bynes, you know, before she went crazy. Watching this movie you will feel like you've heard the story before, that is because you have. This is a modern version of Snow White set at college, complete with 7 dorks instead of 7 dwarves.
I think Amanda Bynes has excellent comedic skills and this movie really showed it. Add in a romance with the local prince (literally a prince, it's his last name) and a rivalry with the president of a sorority who is jealous of Sydney's appeal and it turns into a really fun movie.
I originally rented it from Netflix, but it was so great I had to buy it and watch it again and again. I think I watched it like 7 times the first month I owned it.

Now to watch it again.

Okay, I usually don't pause this close to the beginning of a movie, but I have to write about this. A few minutes into the movie Sydney is presented with a card and a going to college present by her father and contractor co-workers. They tell her to not only study and do well, but also to get wild at times and have fun. She responded by saying, "Don't worry, I'll smile for my mugshot." I don't think Amanda Bynes realized how prophetic that statement was now that she has had several mugshots taken in real life.

I love Sydney's first meeting with Tyler. She is so nervous and rambles a bit. Amanda really nails it. She apologizes for rambling and says she does that when she is nervous so Tyler asks if he's making her nervous. She quickly tries to blame her nervousness on something else and pretends she barely notices he is there. Excellent meet-cute.

The president of the sorority, Rachel,  really hates Sydney. She waits until she's given all of the other pledges their sorority pins making them full sisters before she kicks Sydney out of the pledge class, in front of everyone, public humiliation sucks. She really can't stand that Sydney keeps hitting it off with Tyler who can't stand Rachel.
Sydney leaves the Kappa house and finds refuge in the Vortex, overflow housing which has become home to 7 quirky individuals. Their personalities were modeled after the Disney version of the dwarves:
Grump- Gurkin is an angst-ridden 20-something who is always complaining about things in his blog.
Sneezey- Lenny is allergic to almost everything but is a nice person and befriends Sydney early on.
Happy- Spanky really likes girls. As is characteristic of a college movie he's a sex-crazed virgin. In Lenny's words he keeps himself happy. And now we all have the same look on our faces as Sydney did when he told her that.
Doc- Terrence has been going to college for 8 years because there is still so much to learn.
Bashful- When Jeremy was a child he was so shy his parents sent him to several counselors. One suggested that he use a puppet to help him talk to people. He still uses the puppet.
Sleepy- Embele is from Nigeria on a student visa. He has not gotten used to the time difference so he's always asleep during the day.
Dopey- George is a Junior Tiger Guide who is full of childlike naivete. He can't become a full Tiger Guide until he gets the knot tying merit badge, but judging by his shoes, velcro shoes, he isn't going to be getting that badge anytime soon.

Instead of a magic mirror to see who is the fairest of them all, Rachel's computer has a Hot or Not list of all the girls in the school which all the students can vote on. She's number one and pretends to think it's amusing while secretly she checks all the time to make sure she is on top. She told Sydney that new people never make it on the list but is immediately disproved when Sydney is founds as number 213.





I love the way Tyler asks Sydney out on a date. She is studying in the library when some guy comes up to her with a rose and starts singing the bass part of a melody. 3 more guys come up in succession and add to the parts and Tyler then rounds a corner and all 5 of them start singing "When I See You Smile" a capella. That was the song Tyler danced to with Sydney the night she was kicked out of the Kappa house. Can't go wrong with a capella. I wish I could ask a girl out that way, but my voice is suited more for harmonies than for the melody. Plus, I need to find a girl.
Sydney agrees to go to dinner with him, but insists it will not be a date.
When Sydney is getting ready for the dinner all of the dorks help her with advice. She has not had a lot of dating experience and she has been a tomboy for the last 9 years since her mom died and she was raised by her dad.
When Tyler comes to pick Sydney up all of the guys are really protective of her, it's really sweet. Gurkin threatens to unleash the power of the internet on Tyler if he hurts Sydney. Gurkin would register him as a sex offender in all 50 states plus Canada. As they leave he reminds Tyler of his threat, "All 50 states, buddy!"
When Tyler pulls up to a church Sydney asks, "So you're idea of a first date is to convert me?" "So this is a date now?" The look on her face is so priceless and reminds me why I love Amanda Bynes as an actress.





Sydney becomes number 1 on the Hot or Not list so Rachel will not rest until she brings her and her dorks down. She humiliates the dorks at a party, ruins their chance for taking over the student council and taking away her power, and has their home condemned so they have to move into a motel. Sydney decides it's time for her to face Rachel directly and runs for Student Council president herself. They guys reenact a scene from Disney's Snow White by marching down the sidewalk with campaign sings slung over their shoulders like the dwarves with their pickaxes. As they pass Rachel Gurkin says, "Hi, ho." and then Lenny says, "Bye, ho."
Sydney is working on a final paper for her political science class and adding in ideas from her campaign. At the same time Rachel visits a guy in a dorm room and has him send a virus to Sydney's computer to "poison" her Apple laptop. She has both the student council presidential debate and a deadline for turning in her paper in 12 hours so she has to stay up all night rewriting her paper. She finishes in time and sees that she still has a little bit of time before the debate so she curls up for a short nap. When the debate is ready to begin no one can find her so her prince, Tyler, rushes off to find her. We see her sleeping form from outside a window in the library, framing her as if she's under glass. Tyler kisses her to wake her up so she can get to the debate.
And that's not even the climax of the movie.

Climax and Conclusion:

So at the big debate almost all of the attendees are from Sororities and Fraternities, the people that Rachel has been catering to the whole time, so Sydney only has Tyler and her dorks to support her. She is about to start a speech about what she will do as president but is really nervous. Suddenly the doors open and all of the groups that Sydney had reached out to during her campaign arrived to support her. They vastly outnumbered the "greeks." Sydney talks about giving the power of the school back to the school rather than reserving it just for the elite. She says although people want to fit in, each of us has something about us that is dorky. Sydney collects comic books and is secretly afraid of balloon animals. Tyler then stands up and announces that since he has the high score in Gurkin of Honor (a pastiche video game that Gurkin had made) that makes him a dork, too. Spanky announces his dork status as a virgin (but there's nothing wrong with that, so I don't know why that makes him a dork). Then Jeremy gets up and starts talking himself, not using his puppet. He says that for his whole life he's only spoken through his puppet, takes the puppet off his hand and happily shouts, "I'm a dork!" He then throws the puppet into the crowd. One of the football jocks in Tyler's Beta fraternity house gets up and says that when he was 13 he was the top male figure skater in New Jersey, so he's also a dork. Then a couple Kappa sisters get up and announce that they too are dorks. No one is afraid of being an outsider anymore. That is what I really love about this movie, the real message is about acceptance of people as they are, that their quirks don't devalue them. As a major dork myself you can understand why I really enjoy this part.

And since no movie can be complete without the antagonist getting what's coming to them, as Rachel storms off from the debate upset since she is obviously going to lose the reelection, she is confronted by her Kappa sisters. For her lies, manipulation, and verbal abuse of everyone (including her fellow Kappas) they strip her of her pin and kick her out of the sorority.

Now for the conclusion. Sydney and the dorks were elected to the student council and life is turning out great for everybody. They are finally fixing up their run down home. Lenny is dating Sydney's former roommate Dinky who is also allergic to gluten. Gurkin is dating a girl who loves his blog. Jeremy is seen painting holding the brush without his puppet. Embele is alert during the day (Sydney had been adjusting his alarm clock throughout the movie). George is now wearing the uniform of a Tiger Guide, no longer a Junior. His shoes have laces and he even ties a knot on a bucket to send some nails up to one of the contractors working near the roof of the house. Spanky meets a car full of hot cheerleaders who are lost and need his help, so he's happy. Lastly, Terrence pulls up in a shiny new convertible wearing a suit and a brand new haircut. He explains that the weird experiments he had been running were helping him perfect a probability algorithm that he sold to a betting website for $10 million.

In the end Sydney has a voice over and she ends the movie by saying that they all lived dorkily ever after.