'Lizzie McGuire' is empty-headed farce

By Eleanor O'sullivan
The Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE (Rated PG) Hilary Duff takes her popular TV show to the big screen in this bland comedy that's a thinly veiled message of consumerism and good grooming tips. Co-starring Yani Gellman. Directed by Jim Fall, Walt Disney Pictures. 94 minutes.

Shockingly, the two blonde actresses in the leads — one playing a 16-year-old who is coerced into child prostitution, the other playing a 14-year-old who is coerced into singing in front of adoring fans in Rome — resemble each other strongly. Both were born the same year, too (1987). But the cultural divide couldn't be greater or more sobering.

In the innocuous but lethally bland "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," a junior high school graduate who has a penchant for clumsiness, lives in materialistic splendor. She also gets a swanky two-week school vacation in Rome, stays in a luxurious hotel room, dates a charming Italian pop star (portrayed by Canadian Yani Gellman), does nice things for people, and gets to wear fabulous clothes at a huge rock concert in the ancient Colosseum.

Clearly, young girls who are the target audience for this movie are meant to take away lessons of good deeds but also be lured by its message of consumerism and good grooming tips. At no point does 15-year-old Hilary Duff, who reprises her role from her popular TV show, look sloppy or uncombed. Her hair highlights are to die for; her mother has similarly streaked hair and a youthful body. All the females in this film wear clingy pants or short-short skirts, and makeup that looks like Bobbi Brown applied it. They are primed to attract the opposite sex, with only fun consequences ahead.

In "Lilya 4-Ever," the heroine has two sets of clothes and matted hair. When she dresses like Lizzie McGuire, she is beaten and raped because she's so alluringly "bad." But there is infinitely more happening in her tragically sad face than Duff's Lizzie McGuire can project.

At one point, American princess Lizzie is given a spin on a motor bike around Rome by the Italian pop star, which puts one in mind of Audrey Hepburn's bona fide princess from "Roman Holiday." Behind Hepburn's merry exterior and laughing eyes there was a depth of feeling, and even a sense of loss, that our do-gooder girl Lizzie knows nothing about. But you can bet that it will be Lizzie 4-Ever at the box office, at least for a week.

Rated PG for mild thematic elements.