Python Hyena What a Girl Wants (2003): Dir: Dennie Gordon / Cast: Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver James: Recycled teen family film about the importance of good adult role models. Amanda Bynes stars as a girl who longs to see her father who has been absent for seventeen years. She works as a caterer at a banquet her mother sings at. She tells of how her father got into British politics and how she was secretly sent away by his officials. What follows is pure formula as Bynes shows up to meet her father. He is bewildered and overwhelmed while his current fiancé and stepdaughter would prefer that she left. The main joke is that her lifestyle clashes with their culture. An improvement for director Dennie Gordon after making the pathetic The Adventures of Joe Dirt but it is not much of one. Bynes is an absolute delight and holds strong despite predictable developments. Colin Firth as her father is given a good back story before being subdued with standard material that concludes with him learning the truth. Flat supporting roles by Kelly Preston as Bynes's mother, and Jonathan Pryce as one of the corrupt officials. Oliver James plays her romantic interest and he has less personality than a plastic Ken doll. What a girls wants is what everyone needs, and in this case it would be to star in a film of much higher potential than this paper thin charade. Score: 3 ½ / 10

SnoopyStyle It has always been just Daphne Reynolds (Amanda Bynes) and her mom Libby (Kelly Preston) in their tiny NY apartment above a restaurant in Chinatown. She always tells her about her father Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth) whose British aristocratic family did not approve. The 17 year old runs off to London to find his dad and possibly a missing piece in her life. He's abandoning his seat in the House of Lords to run for office. He's a rising political star and getting married to Glynnis Payne (Anna Chancellor), the daughter of his adviser Alistair Payne (Jonathan Pryce) and mother to Clarissa Payne (Christina Cole).It's a standard premise and not particularly well done. Amanda Bynes is suitably adorable and sweet. She's at her bumbling bubbly best. Colin Firth is terribly stiff and oddly weak-minded. It's a stock character that keeps him from developing real chemistry. It's a teen girl fantasy with a dud prince charming. There's even the evil 'step-mother' and 'step-sister'. It's a silly movie that doesn't really work.

A_Different_Drummer This review written in late 2013 at a time when Ms. Bynes career seems to have derailed and we wish her the best. In her career to date, the two most accomplished works she has left for us are this film, WHAT A GIRL WANTS, and the work she did a few years later, SHES THE MAN. Will deal with the latter first. SHES THE MAN is one of a small sub-sub-sub class of Hollywood products that attempts to build a movie around the notion of a woman disguised as man. There are at least a dozen of these floating around the IMDb. The writing in SHES THE MAN is way above average, and the supporting cast is perfect. But it is Bynes who steals the show there, possibly doing the most impressive male-female switch in film history. And speaking of stealing the show, that is exactly what she does in WHAT A GIRL WANTS. (The title never seemed a good match to the actual film, which builds slowly and successfully to a satisfying conclusion). Playing opposite a stellar cast (Colin Firth? Wow!) Bynes provided the perfect mix of energy, youth and charm to move this movie into a class of its own. She "owns" the role and once you have seen the film, it is hard to imagine anyone else doing it.

robert-temple-1 This is just so funny! The film works because of snappy direction, perfect casting of Colin Firth, and as his daughter the delightful Amanda Bynes, who really makes it. The story was originally filmed in 1958 with Rex Harrison in the Colin Firth role and Sandra Dee as his daughter. It bore the same title as the play upon which it was based, 'The Reluctant Debutante', and was written by William Douglas-Home, who died in 1992, aged 80. It is amazing how well the social satire targets of the 1950s have held up as viable in this new version half a century later. Of course, now they are seen to be fantasies, whereas in the 1950s they were real. It is actually better and more effective that this film, which is essentially a fairytale, attacks fantasies rather than real social issues. Douglas-Home was the brother of the Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and he was personally familiar with all of the social occasions which he satirizes, such as Buckingham Palace garden parties and the Henley Regatta. These define what used to be called by socialites 'the Season'. People 'did the Season', as they are required to do in this film. But today this is all a joke. Although garden parties are still held, the Regatta still takes place, and so on, none of it means anything anymore because the social importance has wholly evaporated, and all of the events have become marginal. A handful of people may go to these things 'to be seen', but they are a dwindling and insignificant coterie nowadays. Social snobbery has long since been replaced by money snobbery, so that England is now little different from America, where money is the measure of all things, and no other standard exists. Strangely enough, people in the USA often do not appreciate how things have changed in Britain, as shown for instance by Dan Brown in his novel 'The Da Vinci Code', where he naively imagines that being called 'Sir' means anything anymore. Nowadays, to be a lord means nothing, and to be a 'sir' means even less. In this film, no one takes reality very seriously. After all, the film starts with 'Lord Dashwood' renouncing his title so that he can enter the House of Commons as an MP, and then for the rest of the film he continues to be addressed as Lord Dashwood anyway. So much for script continuity! But it is all just in fun. William Douglas-Home may have had serious satirical intentions half a century ago, but this is the Disneyesque version of all that, and it is enormously funny and enjoyable. As for Amanda Bynes, in this she is a perfect gem.