Dylan Schoenfield (Sarah Hyland) is the most popular girl at Woodlands Academy. She also happens to be the most arrogant, stuck-up, and selfish person in the school. At least that’s what film geek Josh Rosen (Matt Prokop) thinks. Normally he wouldn’t have anything to do with a girl like that, but he is a film student looking to create a hard-hitting documentary about popularity that might win him an award at a film festival and possibly catapult him into a good film school.
When Josh asks Dylan about making a documentary all about her desire to become the Blossom Queen of the school, she jumps at the chance thinking that a film about how wonderful she is will ensure her victory.
At first the two clash because of their personalities, but as time goes on Josh begins to see the side of her that nobody else sees. He discovers that she is just like everyone else with hopes and dreams, and how she hides her true self behind a façade just to remain popular. At the same time, Dylan also begins to see Josh as not so nerdy and kind of fun to be around.
As the two get closer, start to become friends, and maybe something more, their friends begin to abandon them. Josh’s geek friends think he’s spending too much time with the popular kids and is starting to act and talk like one of them. Dylan’s friends don’t understand why she hangs around someone so beneath her and cast her aside.
But this is a Disney film and a teen romantic comedy, so we know everyone is going to end up living happily ever after.
The two-DVD set contains no special features, but it does have 10 episodes of the Disney show Shake It Up about two young girls from Chicago who wind up on a television dance show while on their way to becoming professional dancers. The packaging also comes along with two silver charms.
Geek Charming may not be the most original film. Even without knowing anything more than having a popular girl and a geeky boy you already know what’s going to happen. Geek meets snobby rich girl. They hate one another. They slowly start to like each other. Then someone (it’s always the guy) makes the other one mad. Then he must do something romantic and win her back. And finally we get the moral of how everyone should be treated the same regardless of what social status they are and what truly matters is the person inside.
We’ve seen it a million times before, but it’s always a good message. What’s more important is if they can successfully retell the same story but do it in a different way. For a teenage film it has a fairly decent script and is entertaining and unique enough to keep it from getting stale.
The acting of Prokop is a little choppy and particularly awkward in the early scenes, but he improves as the film goes on. Hyland is obviously the more professional of the two as she shows a wide array of emotions. It’s nice to see her play a character different from what we see in her Modern Family role.
