Drive Me Crazy

Critics use terms like "predictable" and "lightweight" to describe a film's weaknesses. Yet they could also be used to describe some of the charm about "Drive Me Crazy."

That's not to say that this teen romantic comedy is great filmmaking. In fact it's a rather unfocused work that squanders more than a couple of chances to make a real point. And in the final third the whole thing nearly collapses under the weight of some dreadful character development and bad story construction.

Still, it's light years beyond other recent movies of this genre, including the awful "She's All That" and the even-more-awful "Varsity Blues," both of which had a preoccupation with sex and scripts that would have garnered the authors F grades in a high school English class.

Besides, it's hard to resist the pairing of Melissa Joan Hart (TV's "Sabrina the Teenage Witch") and Adrian Grenier, two young actors who manage to make the material more appealing than it has a right to be.

Hart plays Nicole Maris, a social-climbing high school student with big plans for the senior prom, which is also the school's centennial celebration. Nicole is expecting star athlete Brad (Gabriel Carter) to ask her to the dance but is foiled when he falls for the head cheerleader at a rival school.

Meanwhile, misfit prankster Chase Hammond (Grenier) has romantic troubles of his own. Longtime girlfriend Dulcie (Ali Larter, from "Varsity Blues") has dumped him in favor of a more "dangerous" anarchist.

So the two former childhood friends and next-door neighbors come up with a desperate scheme to win back their respective dates — one that involves a serious makeover for Chase, who's supposed to take Nicole to the prom. And even though their plan seems to work, at least on Dulcie, there's one contingency that Nicole and Chase hadn't planned on — namely that the two of them might be attracted to each other.

As mentioned, none of what happens next is surprising, and the script (by "Dawson's Creek" writer Rob Thomas) glosses over some interesting social issues.

But Hart and Grenier, particularly, nearly right the ship single-handedly, and it's paced in such a way that it never gets bogged down by the sheer inanity of the premise.

"Drive Me Crazy" is rated PG-13 for scattered profanities (including the so-called "R-rated" curse word), some sexual talk, crude slang and a vulgar gesture, as well as a brief beating.