A cultural exchange visit descends into a teen twist on All About Eve in the small-town Texan comedy, Slap Her She's French.
But the magpie hommaging doesn't end there, as director Melanie Mayron was clearly taking copious notes while watching Single White Female, Legally Blonde and Drop Dead Gorgeous, too.
Yet despite its derivative nature, this still comes across as an eminently entertaining farce thanks to Jane McGregor's vivacious turn as the shallow overachiever whose life is sabotaged by seemingly harmless Gallic gamine, Piper Perabo.
Indeed, her able blend of bimbo bitching and slapstick schtick almost atones for the anaemic moralising and squealchy sentimentality of the romantic sub-plot.
By David Parkinson - published in The Oxford Times, October 25
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