The Girls of Summer: From Justin to Kelly

We close out this year's look at the Girls of Summer with this last blast of nostalgia.  

The beach movie sort of died off as a genre by the time the late 90’s rolled around.  Nostalgic types were busy reflecting on the 70s, with all of its attendant odd affection for the 50s (Grease singalong slumber parties often ended with frantic iterations of the “YMCA” dance for 90’s kids; you can’t say we weren’t a creative generation).    That explains My Girl’s popularity, and its positioning as the ultimate 70’s nostalgia throwback with a mid-60s Mo-Town soundtrack.

The 00s were a different time.   We had different priorities; our idols were self-made people winking at us from the television set, and we could vote them off of our screens with the pressing of a button when we grew tired of them.   Reality television was a brand new medium, and every single ancillary production arm, from radio to the internet, tried to take advantage of the nascent fame of the Richard Hatches of the world.  When Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guaraní came in first and second place during the very first American Idol competition,  two cogs spun into motion – the music industry set about manufacturing a sound for both musicians, and the film industry set about creating the first American Idol motion picture.

The result, “From Justin To Kelly”, was blatantly marketed at American Idol’s teenage viewers, giving us a squeaky clean look at spring break in which over-the-clothing whipped cream bikini contests were considered bold and daring – and pretty much exclusively for Jelly shippers, one of the first reality show shipping fandoms .  The net worth of it all was a box office bomb that now stands as an early 0’s curio of fashion disasters and awkward scripting. 

This movie, along with the infamous reality show documentary The Real Cancun, pretty much stuck a big fat stake in the heart of both beach movies and the idea of reality television as anything but a televised medium.  In its own odd way it’s pretty important, because it temporarily killed off a revival of the musical comedy when it bombed.   The genre only climbed back on its feet with the release of Hairspray several years later.

The plot concerns itself with two spring breakers: straight laced Texas barroom singer Kelly (Clarkson), who impulsively joins her friends on a spring break journey to Florida; and Justin (Guaraní), a more ambitious kid whose group of friends are trying to get rich quick through various schemes and is generally using the holiday as a working one.  The movie turns into a comedy of errors as Kelly and Justin are torn apart and thrust together over the movie’s course due to circumstance while their friends run about trying to hook up with their own crushes.  The main manipulator is her jealous best friend, who has the grace to fade into the background and disappear during the final big dance number. 

Ultimately, the movie’s biggest problem is chemistry.  Clarkson and Guarini had it in spades when they were performing duets together on Idol, but when pretending to be other people for some reason their magic lacks.   Add a host of indistinguishable talents surrounding them with equal parts terrible songwriting, awful acting, bizarre choreography and the whitest rapping you've ever seen, and you end up with a movie that’s both delightfully cheesy and at turns painfully whitebred.  

There are lots of missed opportunities with Clarkson’s character; at first she seems to want a career as an independent singer, but soon that ambition is forgotten as her storyline becomes all about that romance (no depth).  Even Gidget had more of a reason for being; one waits for her to discover the joys of surfing, of SOMETHING, but nope, it’s boys, boys and more boys.  How far we’ve come from Miss Lawrence, y’know?

The best parts of the movie involve the awkwardly choreographed and staged musical numbers to now sadly-forgotten Justin and Kelly numbers, some of which involves popping and locking that wouldn't be out of place in that Lorenzo Lamas flick “Body Rock.”  Clarkson's career rebounded on the strength of a series of rock-solid pop successes, including the classic album "Breakaway", but outside of several moderately-successful Jazz records and several appearances on Broadway, Guarini's career stalled out and refused to be restarted.

And yet the legacy they've left the movie world could be a worse one.  If you go in expecting glimmering fun and ridiculously goofy antics, then this movie might just end up joining “Can’t Stop The Music” on your dvd shelf of cheesy pop goodness.