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What a Girl Wants

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Jenny Bicks
Elizabeth Chandler
William Douglas Home (play The Reluctant Debutante and 1958 screenplay)
Directed by: Dennie Gordon
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 4, 2003
DVD: August 5, 2003
Running Time: 100 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for mild language
Starring Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Anna Chancellor, Tom Harper, Jonathan Pryce, and Eileen Atkins
Determined to live out her fantasy of forging a storybook relationship with her long-absent dad, a spirited young American girl (Bynes) impulsively hops a flight to London, where she quickly discovers that her father (Firth) is a high profile politician. (Warner Bros.)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Joe Dirt New York Minute
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
In her sassy but scrubbed way, Bynes is a real charmer, and What a Girl Wants is a likable throwaway.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
There's nothing wrong with fairy tales, but they don't have to be formulaic. A movie like this would have benefited from a blending of the fanciful and the inventive.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Clint Morris
While this is far from an avant-garde, ingenious flick, it uses a dependable formula thatll definitely deliver.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
Bynes is a charmer who adeptly straddles the line between romantic heroine and physical comedienne, while Firth is extremely enjoyable as a befuddled father.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dave Kehr
Minnelli's comedy had its serious underpinnings: by the end of the film, a girl had become a woman. By the end of Ms. Gordon's film, the girl is still a girl, but a girl with much cooler stuff, including a stately home, a butler and a cute British boyfriend.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
Strictly for budding young ladies, though it does offer those who've already bloomed the grown-up pleasures of Firth, a great actor who graciously invites you to join him in the slow-burn romantic corner into which he's rapidly painting himself.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Works well enough. It has a decided plus in its appealing young star, Amanda Bynes, last seen opposite Frankie Muniz in "Big Fat Liar."
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's mostly forced and predictable, too much of the physical comedy falls very flat.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Janice Page
It's not that What a Girl Wants is dreadful; it's merely slapdash, wildly inconsistent in tone and style, and mind-numbingly predictable in character and plot.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Pleasant bubblegum romp, which was inspired by the old Sandra Dee picture "The Reluctant Debutante."
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's slick girlie stuff, but the cast makes it go down easy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie is clearly intended for girls between the ages of 9 and 15, and for the more civilized of their brothers, and isn't of much use to anyone else.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
It feels much more like a shameless reshuffle of "The Princess Diaries."
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Karen Heller
Designed as the ideal confection to attract a young girl or teen, What a Girl Wants will more likely hook their mothers.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Instantly forgettable but good-natured all the same.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Anya Kamenetz
A culture-shock/daddy-meets-girl romantic comedy, WAGW is a sanitized adventure for the Mary Kate-and-Ashley set.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
Very sketchily based upon "The Reluctant Debutante" (minus the charm, plot, and characterization).
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Movie lite, a clueless, formulaic paint-by-numbers comedy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Were it not for young star Amanda Bynes' energetic good nature in the face of drab dialogue and wooden stereotypes, What a Girl Wants might have been a career-ending movie violation rather than just an embarrassing fender-bender.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
If the Warner Bros. wizards have it right, what a girl wants is to see as much of Amanda Bynes as she possibly can...It's not so great for the rest of us, since the film has nothing else to offer.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Dreadful teen comedy with a "Cinderella" theme.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Young audiences may welcome this movie, but girls, and boys, should want more.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Janice P. gave it a10:
I would recommend this movie to everyone to watch. there were happy and sad moments and it reaches out to the young and the old. The cast is incredible especially Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth.
clay gave it a3:
Lame. total copy off Cinderella, and not even in a clever way. good film if you love stereotypes though.
Katherine gave it a9:
I thought it ws good. Not great.
Christine gave it a10:
I think it's a great movie...well.it's true that it's a girl movie.but it's cool....colin firth is the best.
Sarah W. gave it a10:
I loved the movie!!!!
Georgia gave it a2:
Stereotyped the British. Unrealistic, Byrnes was plain annoying; especially the accent.
Amanda S. gave it a9:
Nice movie great for girls, very funny, yup, its a great movie to watch, a movie for boys too, i know a boy who saw it at my house, though he didnt understand a thing!!!
