There was the gorgeous, single mom whose dating behavior made a lasting impression on her daughter.

Then there was the “invisible” girl, molded and lifted to popularity by the three betrayed girlfriends: the head cheerleader, the vegetarian animal activist, and the brainy student council president. These four scheme together in order to bring about the demise of their betrayer.

John Tucker, captain of the basketball team. Enough said.

The actors in this movie managed to play their clichéd roles well enough that I overlooked the predictability of the movie, and enjoyed it for the characters themselves.

My favorite character was the “other Tucker brother”, John Tucker’s sibling. His one-line quips throughout the movie were like nuggets of chocolate in trail mix. The best line of the entire movie came when he acknowledged the constant comparisons between himself and his popular brother and said, “My mother tells me I’m special on the inside.” A truism that more of us should remember.

The moral of the movie was that it is important to be true to yourself—to be honest about who you are. (Did you think we were going to escape a Hollywood moral in a movie aimed at teen audiences?) The one deep thought I had about this movie was sparked by that quote by Tucker’s brother: God thinks that we are special on the inside too. And the most amazing part of it all is that God actually knows who we are on the inside. I am humbled and awed. He made me, He knows me better than anyone else, and He still thinks that I am special, and He loves me. It does not matter what clothes I wear, how I fix my hair, or what I say. I cannot deceive God into thinking that I am something or someone that I am not.

We could save ourselves a lot of time if we would just let a silly Hollywood teen movie remind us how pointless it is to pretend.

By Kristine De La Cruz