Erbak Movie Reviews: Never Been Kissed (1999)

If you had the chance to go back to your high school years and start everything over, what would you change?

Her Life Was About to Change.

Josie had grown into an insecure young woman because of everything she had experienced during high school. She was the youngest editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, yet her greatest ambition was to become a reporter. Unfortunately, all the success she had achieved in her professional life did little to help her personal life. The wounds she had carried with her since high school had left Josie unable to trust people, and at twenty-five, she had still never kissed a man. If she ever did kiss someone, it wouldn’t be something that happened with just anyone at just any moment. It would be an experience that seemed to stop time itself. And after that kiss, Josie’s life would never be the same again.

Everything Was Still the Same.

Unfortunately, those dreams had very little to do with reality. Josie had spent years doing little more than going from home to work and back again, so for the first time in a long while, a wave of excitement had entered her life. Of course, it was connected to her career. She was going undercover at a high school, posing as a student in order to write a story about the completely different lives teenagers were living. Walking on air with excitement, Josie’s feet came crashing back down to earth on her very first day at school. Everything she thought had changed since her own high school years was still exactly the same.

She Was Becoming Miserable.

The high school students seemed to compete with one another in cruelty. Even though she was nearly ten years older than them, Josie found herself completely unequipped to deal with their schemes and social games, and she became more miserable with each passing day. One of the few things that made her happy was how well she was doing in literature class. Of course, that success was not entirely one-sided. Before long, Josie had developed a crush on her handsome and charismatic teacher, Sam Coulson. Sam had also begun to feel a special connection with Josie, but because she was his student, he refused to let those feelings go beyond sympathy and affection.

She Was Finally Popular!

While Josie was trying to make sense of life at school, things only seemed to get worse. Her brother Rob, who had always been one of the popular kids at school, enrolled there under a fake identity, posing as a high school student in order to help his sister and turn her disastrous “high school” experience around. And somehow, he actually managed to do it. The new and seemingly perfect kid at school, Rob changed everyone’s opinion of Josie by telling extraordinary stories about her. Once people began to believe that Josie actually lived a glamorous and luxurious life, everyone started admiring the girl they had once considered a complete loser—especially the school’s most popular students.

Her Fate Was Changing.

For the first time in her life, Josie was popular, beautiful, admired, and mysterious. To make matters even more exciting, the most handsome boy in school, Guy Perkins, had invited her to the prom. Her bad luck seemed to be changing. The girl who had once been mocked, pushed aside, and forced to endure bullying had disappeared. Josie was now the coolest girl in school. But there was one problem: Josie didn’t actually want to be cool. Being admired like this had once been a teenage dream she desperately wanted to live, but she had already left those years behind.

The Difficulties Wouldn’t Leave Her Alone.

While trying to deal with the wounds of her youth all over again, Josie had also fallen in love with her teacher, Sam. The worst part of pretending to be a high school student was knowing that, sooner or later, she would have to tell Sam the truth. But there was no way around it. Especially when the newspaper she worked for demanded that Josie write a story about Sam filled with lies, exaggerations, and revelations…

Trouble simply refused to leave poor Josie alone. She was beginning to understand that pretending could be exciting and beautiful, but eventually, she would have to face the consequences of the life she had created.

“The Perfect Moment”

Her feelings for Sam, the possibility of losing her job at the newspaper, all the people she had deceived, and the young girl who had once been a victim of bullying—all of it became too much to carry. And at a moment when no one expected it, Josie finally revealed who she really was. She might not have been able to win, but she chose reality over a fake life. And just when she thought she had lost everything, she finally reached the perfect “moment” she had dreamed of all along.

May Josie’s story inspire all of us who refuse to settle for anything less than perfect. Enjoy the film…