Hating Alison Ashley (2005)

“Erica, I know I can rely on you to show Alison around.”

            Hating Alison Ashley is a movie I have been waiting YEARS to see. Literally, honestly YEARS. That is until it hit me on the head to check out YouTube and there it was! God bless YouTube and its gloriousness. So why have I been waiting ten years to see a not very successful Australian movie? Two words: Delta. Goodrem. I will fan girl like a flailing idiot in a moment over Delta Goodrem let me just write out a summary of the movie for you.

            In a school that looks more like the apocalypse has struck and the students are running madly about with no structure is a girl named Erica Yurken. The school and town of East Barringa is not the classiest of places. Erica dreams of getting out of her hell hole life and becoming a world renowned actress (who doesn’t have those kinds of dreams?). She dreams of a classy life away from her dirt bag pot growing brother, her younger sister who has been living has a horse for the past seven years, an older sister who dresses like the finest trailer trash, her hard working mother and her mother’s boyfriend who she just sees as trash.

            Erica feels her life is finally turning around when a new teacher is assigned to her class. The teacher is strict and takes no bull shit. Not too long after a new girl named Alison Ashley (Goodrem) is assigned to her class. Alison is a sweet girl who looks as though as a cruel joke been placed in their run down school instead of the prim and proper upper crust girl’s school in the next town. Erica is desperate to be friends with Alison. She sees Alison as someone on her level. Alison is smart and very talented and starts getting all the attention that Erica has wanted for so long. Soon enough, and predictably so, Erica becomes jealous of the new girl. We begin to see how completely insecure, selfish, and annoying Erica really is.

            Alright are you ready for me to be the biggest fan girl over a musician? No? Well, that’s fine because it is going to happen anyway with or without your approval.

            Since middle school I have been a huge fan of British Pop music. Put it this way I knew who Natasha Bedingfield, Lily Allen, One Direction, Cher Lloyd, The Wanted, and The Saturdays all were before they came over to America. I would buy the music magazine Top of the Pops like a religious zealot every month. When I was buying TOTP Girls Aloud were just starting out, S Club 7 were still a popular thing, and the first series of Pop Idol had just ended. Back when cell phones were becoming widely used TOTP would have a few pages of lists of songs that could be bought as ringtones. I would sit on my computer for hours poring over these pages and downloading them through LimeWire (holy shit remember that?! And FrostWire?!). I become an obsessive nut with a lot of the artists and bands I found through those lists and whoever was covered in throughout the magazine. One artist I became obsessed with was Delta Goodrem. At the time Goodrem had just released her single Lost Without You in the UK. Ever since my first listen to Lost Without You I have adored the girl. I have all of her albums and even her concert DVDs. As I write this review I am listening to a Delta Goodrem playlist I have iTunes. I know every one of her songs by heart. I am not going to go too much into her story because you can Google that yourself. Right now just stop reading this review and go look up her songs. My favorites are Lost Without You (US Version), Mistaken Identity, Out of the Blue, Dancing With a Broken Heart, I Can’t Break It To My Heart, In This Life, Believe Again, Predictable, Take Me Home, Hypnotised, and No Communication.

            Delta Goodrem was always a singer but she got her break when she became a part of the hit Australian show Neighbors as an actress. The girl knows how to act. Goodrem actually made Hating Alison Ashley two years after finding out she had cancer. From what I have read about the movie a lot of critics did not like her acting at all. I would like to tell them to give the girl a break the poor thing just got over having cancer! Her performance is not that great it is a bit stiff I will say that and she looked exhausted. At least Goodrem did not just speak her lines word for word she did act them out. I felt bad for Alison Ashley because Erica was so wrapped up in herself and such a moron that she did not see that Alison was a loner too and that she needed a good friend.

            The rest of the cast was very good. The actress who played Erica did a great job because her character annoyed the piss outta me! To me when a character can grate my nerves the actors did a good job.

            The story is so silly and predictable but unlike American teen movies with the same plot Hating Alison Ashley is not that bad. I am happy I was finally able to find Hating Alison Ashley after so many years of looking for it. As I mentioned at the beginning the movie is available to view on YouTube so head over and give it a watch.