Fridae

In the style of Michael Haneke's Funny Games, LOL is a nearly scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake helmed and written by its original director.

The original LOL was made in 2008, a high school comedy about a mother who was a teen during the sexual revolution of the 70s and her daughter as a representative of the first post-sexual liberation generation going through their teens. It filters the perennial concerns of teen or high school comedies (first love, crushes, sexual exploration and awakening, drugs, booze, and popularity contests) through the new sexual milieu. And of course because it happens in France, most of the sexual exploration and awakening is not accompanied by prurient hysteria/giggly fratboy indulgence dynamic we are accustomed to in American films on the same topics.

The American remake takes the entire film almost line-for-line and scene-for-scene and transplants it to New York with it-girl du jour Miley Cyrus in the starring role and Demi Moore as the mum. It's a great premise especially when we consider Ms Moore's status as a former sex symbol who also produced female coming-of-age films (like the rarely seen Now and Then). LOL would represent a development of her character role in film, a master stroke of casting that would invigorate her career as much as her choices for Ashton Kutcher's films did for his career when they were briefly married.

Yet for a remake that intends to be as little changed from the original as possible, LOL is an entirely different creature altogether. I put it to the director having very little control over her young cast, who along with Ms Cyrus, all seem to want to deliver their lines with the obnoxiousness turned up to 11. There are precocious teens and to be sure, but where the French cast of young actors could act like teens who know how to put on a brave act and yet are cognizant of when they have crossed a line, the American cast seems to suggest far more self-centredness, bitchiness, and insensitivity that was intended in the original script.

In the original film, we were able to laugh off the teens and their act as something harmless and part of growing up. Here, we are not able to identify or empathise with any of them. If you want to see LOL as it was intended, support the original and borrow the French version from your local DVD library.