Odd Girl Out
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| Odd Girl Out | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Tom McLoughlin |
| Written by | Matthew McDuffie Book: Rachel Simmons |
| Starring | Alexa Vega Lisa Vidal Leah Pipes Shari Dyon Perry Elizabeth Rice Alicia Morton Rhoda Griffis |
| Release date(s) | April 4, 2005 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Odd Girl Out is a 2005 drama telefilm starring Alexa Vega, Lisa Vidal, Elizabeth Rice, Alicia Morton, Leah Pipes, Shari Dyon Perry, Joey Nappo and Chad Biagini. The movie was first aired on April 4, 2005 on Lifetime. It is the story about the struggles of teenage Vanessa Snyder, who must deal with the brutality and peer pressure of the students at her middle school.
This film is based on the book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons. It sheds light into the topic of girls' hostility and bullying.
[edit] Plot
Vanessa Snyder (Alexa Vega) is an admired eighth-grader in her school. She has a loving single mother, Barbara (Lisa Vidal), who is proud of her well-placed daughter. Vanessa is also "in" with a popular clique, led by her best friend Stacy Larson (Leah Pipes), the queen bee, and Nikki Rodriguez (Elizabeth Rice), who is secretly jealous of Stacy and Vanessa's closeness. On the outside of this exclusive friendship circle is the recluse, Emily (Shari Dyon Perry), and blonde wannabe, Tiffany (Alicia Morton), who's dying to make it into the pack.
The terrible nightmare begins when Nikki tricks Vanessa into getting close to Tony (Chad Biagini), a boy whom Stacy (and somewhat Vanessa) has a crush on. A web of lies, nasty rumour and manipulation ensues, and Vanessa is ostracized by the clique for "backstabbing" Stacy. Helpless, Vanessa soon faces the conflict and violence from her former friends, Nikki and the others. Making the clique stronger is Tiffany (Alicia Morton), who has been accepted into the group and poisoning the others against Vanessa. Although Nikki is the main girl who is tormenting Vanessa, Stacy plays her part by pretending she's still Vanessa's best friend and not stopping the attacks on her. She is shown as being somewhat uncomfortable in some of the situations, implying that she might regret this is happening, and that "The Pack" is going too far. Vanessa is slowly pushed out of class activities, called names, socially isolated and the worst, her tormentors create a hate site about her on which they put humiliating photos of Vanessa.
Emily tries to convince Vanessa not to go running back to the clique, but Vanessa keeps attempting to seek reconciliation with Stacy, to disastrous results. The bullying escalates, with Stacy, Nikki, Tiffany and others cornering Vanessa inside a bathroom and verbally brutalizing her, including degrading every aspect of her and revealing her embarrassing secrets. Vanessa ends up chopping all her hair off while in a nervous breakdown. Then she starts cutting school, fearing the agony in the hallways. Stacy offers several fake truces for her to help her in schoolwork, only to dump her repeatedly.
Once Vanessa's mother, Barbara, sees a print-out of comments about Vanessa's hair, she tries to help by informing the school about the bullying, to no avail as the principal is unable to take disciplinary action against non-physical bullying. Barbara even tries to talk to Stacy's mother, Denise (Rhoda Griffis) but only ends up straining their friendship. Even an adult like Barbara is helpless in the face of teen violence.
Vanessa's spirits are lifted when Stacy invites her to her birthday party. After preparing, she arrives at a club, which is not the site of the party. When discovering this, Vanessa goes ballistic. She takes an overdose of her mother's sleeping pills, but survives, and also befriends Emily, the only one of her classmates to visit her in the hospital.
Emily in a classroom meeting with their teacher and peers around them, accuses Stacy of almost killing her with her actions.
Back home, Barbara spots malicious instant messages popping up on Vanessa's computer. She sends them to the school principal, who threatens to expel the culprits, who were Nikki, Tiffany, and Ezra (Joey Nappo), another tormentor. If they deny that they cyber-bullied Vanessa, they would be expelled from the school and not graduate.
When Vanessa returns to school, she and Stacy reunite after Stacy convinces her that she's sorry about the bullying. They IM each other about how great it feels to be best friends again. Then graduation day comes and the final conflict happens when after the graduation, Nikki and Tiffany read aloud the chat between Vanessa and Stacy, which was printed out by Nikki. Vanessa finds Stacy and confronts her, something that no one has dared to do before. Vanessa brings everything down on Stacy and sees right through her offer of false friendship. Stacy does not want to fight with Vanessa, as they are in front of every eighth grader and parent. Stacy whispers, "Not here, Vanessa" and tries to hug her. But Vanessa pushes her away and ends the fight by saying, "You have nothing that I want."
The film concludes with a humiliated Stacy fleeing the school after having her methods fly back in her face. She is dethroned, and her two "henchwomen", Nikki and Tiffany, are left powerless without a leader. Onlookers begin to applaud Vanessa for her courageous actions. She hugs Emily, the only true friend she's had. They both leave for an after-party, permanently disbanding the bullying clique.
[edit] Cast
- Alexa Vega - Vanessa Snyder
- Lisa Vidal - Barbara Snyder
- Leah Pipes - Stacy Larson
- Elizabeth Rice - Nikki Rodriguez
- Alicia Morton - Tiffany
- Shari Dyon Perry - Emily
- Joey Nappo - Ezra
- Rhoda Griffis - Denise Larson
- Nancy McLoughlin - Ms. Donnely
- Margo Moorer - Principal Jessup
- Chad Biagini - Tony
- Michael Arata - Dave Larson
