Love Don’t Cost A Thing (2003)
Copyright Doomster 2005
Rating (1 to 10) : 5
Summary: Alvin, a nerdy high-schooler, makes a deal with Paris, a very popular girl at their high school. Alvin offers to pay to repair the car of Paris’ mother that Paris damaged. In return, she has to pretend to be his girlfriend for two weeks.
Alvin Johnson (Nick Cannon) is a nerdy boy with a big 1970’s Afro. He’s awkward and a social outcast in his high school. His only friends are three other nerds who band together because they have a common interest in auto mechanics.
Paris Morgan (Christina Milian) is the opposite of Alvin. She’s beautiful, popular, and part of the “in-crowd”. Think of her as Kobe Bryant’s high-school love - her “boo” (boyfriend) is an NBA basketball player who was drafted right out of high school.
Paris takes her mother’s car out one night and has a fender-bender. She has no money to pay for it. By chance, Alvin is at the same garage picking up some parts. He makes Paris a deal – he fixes her mother’s car and pays for the parts, she pretends to be his girlfriend so he’d be more popular.
Their deal works out great. Paris gets her mother’s car fixed without her mother ever finding out while Alvin becomes popular all of a sudden. You see his body language change as he transforms from outcast to an admired person; he stands straighter and hunches less as he gains in popularity. He gets more confident. He also gets a bit more arrogant.
The dilemma seems to be that as Alvin starts hanging out with the “cool” crowd, he abandons his former nerdy friends, to the point of being dismissive of them. He becomes so popular that he even looks down on Paris. Will his popularity make him blind to what he’s becoming? Or will he realize that he should be who he is instead of trying to be what he thinks other people want him to be? It’s eternal question of youth; almost everybody adolescent has faced it when he/she was a teenager and grasping with his/her identity.
I think you know the answer to that – this type of movie isn’t known for sudden plot twists or surprises. The only difficulty for me in watching the movie was comprehending the slangs of the hip-hop culture. This movie is definitely geared for the younger, hip-hop teen-age audience – but it’s a story done before.
Why you should or should not see this movie:
If you like to see a predictable story, which I’m sure has been done before, set in a hip-hop culture, this might interest you. Mildly entertaining but you’re not losing much if you miss it.
Memorable quotes
Copyright
Doomster 2005