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Wild Child (film)

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Template:Future film

For the 1970 French film, see The Wild Child.
Wild Child
Promotional film poster
Directed byNick Moore
Written byLucy Dahl
Produced byTim Bevan
StarringEmma Roberts
Natasha Richardson
Aidan Quinn
Shirley Henderson
Kimberley Nixon
Linzey Cocker
Juno Temple
Lexi Ainsworth
Shelby Young
CinematographyChris Seager
Edited bySimon Cozens
Music byMichael Price
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
August 15, 2008 (UK)
May 8, 2009 (US)
Running time
98 min.
CountriesUnited States
United Kingdom
France
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million
Box office$16,006,918

Wild Child is a teen 2008 comedy film starring Emma Roberts as Poppy Moore, Alex Pettyfer as Freddie Kingsley and Natasha Richardson as Mrs. Kingsley. It was directed by Nick Moore and is rated 12A for sexual content, coarse language and drinking. The film is set in both England and Los Angeles.

Plot

The film starts with a shot of the ocean before a shot of Poppy Moore (Emma Roberts) sleeping. She then wakes up before remembering her dad's girlfriend is moving in. In a bid to get attention she gets her heap of very fake friends to trash all her dad's girlfriend's stuff. She proceeds to jump off the cliff with some clothes, which her father is not pleased about. He tells her he is sending her to boarding school in England.

Her room-mates [Drippy(Jennifer), Kiki(Camilla), Josie and Kate] take a disliking to her spoiled ways and she immediately alienates herself with her attitude towards the school and other girls, resulting in Matron putting her whole dormitory in detention. After this Poppy tries to find a way to leave without much success. She sneaks into the computer room at night to send an email to her best friend Ruby and sees Drippy sneaking into the freezer to have some ice cream after an embarrassing eyebrow tint. When a fire drill practice happens whilst Poppy is out of her dormitory, she sneaks outside and climbs up a ladder into one of the rooms so she does not get caught. A male voice from behind a bath curtain asks her name and helps her get out without being caught.

During a lacrosse practice Poppy laughs at Harriet's attempts to be a good lacrosse player and the two get into a fight on the ground when Freddie drives up and uses Poppy's name making her realise that his was the male voice she heard. When she goes to the headmistress's office, Mrs Kingsley gives her the novel Alice in Wonderland, telling her it might help. When Harriet is forcing a first year to "age" her clothes for the upcoming school dance, she sees Poppy sitting on a bench under the window and pours the dirty water all over Poppy. Room-mate Kate finds Poppy upset and alone in their room and finds out that Poppy's mum passed away when she was eleven years old. She tells Poppy she will have to get herself expelled if she's serious about escaping.

As she reads Alice in Wonderland, her roommates sneak up on her and decide to help her get expelled. They give their ideas on how she can get expelled, and they all help with the deeds bringing them closer together, but Poppy still wants to leave. When none of their plans work they decide to up the ante and hit the headmistress closer to home via her rather gorgeous son Freddie who is strictly forbidden to fraternize with any of the girls. They go into town to find some outfits for the dance and Poppy finds herself enjoying shopping in a thrift store. They then go to the hairdresser (Nick Frost) and Poppy goes back to a more natural color of dark brown.

As the dance starts all the boys are on one side and the girls on another and then Harriet comes out to the theme tune of Pride and Prejudice (she had heard that Freddie thought she looked like Keira Knightley), wearing a costume and attempting a pout which seems to scare Freddie more than anything. After dancing with Freddie, Poppy trips and hits her head which leads Freddie to take the concussed girl outside for air where he asks her out on a date for when he comes back to the school. During this time Poppy whips the lacrosse team into shape, getting them to the final which is a first for them since 1976. Before going out with Freddie, Poppy is so excited she doesn't log off the computer after emailing Ruby, and runs off; while Harriet whips up some trouble on her account. On the date Poppy tries to make them stay close to school but they end up going into town and Poppy finds herself falling for Freddie. They kiss during lunch and Poppy returns to school on a high. When she returns she finds her roommates reading an email from her email address sent to Ruby stating that she thought all of her new friends were losers and pathetic, then she finds that Freddie has been given a similar email that tells him the reason Poppy wanted to date him was to get expelled and that she thought he was a loser and an English dweeb.

Poppy, with no one else to turn to, sneaks down to the cook's room to use the phone and rings Ruby who also got a e-mail, who is apparently "busy" and is desperate to get off the phone. Thinking it is now someone else on the phone Ruby reveals how she dislikes Poppy. During the phone call we see Drippy go to the freezer for ice cream. Feeling even more alone, Poppy starts playing with her lighter, accidentally setting a curtain alight. Hearing footsteps, she quickly puts out the fire and runs off. A few minutes later, she looks out her window to see a fire, and wakes Kate and the rest of the school. As they all wait for the roll call they find that Drippy is missing, Poppy realises where she must have been and runs into the smoky room to get her out. After the fire is put out, Freddie looks at the damage and finds her lighter. He gives it back to her, refusing to listen to what happened. Poppy goes to the headmistress and confesses. Poppy also asks Mrs. Kingsley to give a letter to Freddie apologizing and confessing her feelings about everything.

While waiting for the Honour Court which will decide if she should be expelled. The school thinks Poppy was trying to kill them all and are ready to give her up. Poppy finds a picture of her mum and the lacrosse team and thinks about how they are alike. Poppy sits with the picture when Freddie finds her crying. After a heart to heart, Freddie is convinced that she, Poppy, is innocent and did not write the email. At the Honour Court, Poppy tells her story while her roommates find out Poppy was out with Freddie when the email was sent, and Harriet was the only one around. Going to the court, they get the whole school to confess they were present at the fire. Harriet then lets slip about Poppy's lighter being used to start the fire, which only Poppy and Freddie knew about, and accidentally confesses to restarting the fire after Poppy had successfully put it out. Poppy is innocent and Harriet is expelled and the whole year is happy about that. The movie is left off at the lacrosse finals where Abbey Mount wins. Poppy's father comes to the game and is shocked by Poppy's dramatic change, in particular, how similar she has become to her mother. Poppy is happy about how she has changed and how her heart is healed. Some months later, Poppy is back at her home with her father and her sister in Malibu, together with Kate, Josie, Drippy, Kiki and Freddie. Ruby rings Poppy to see if she wants to meet up but Poppy refuses to answer the call. When Freddie asks who Ruby is, she replies by saying "just some horridious cow I used to know". To celebrate them spending time with her, Poppy convinces her friends to make the leap off the cliff that led her to arrival at Abbey Mount. In spite of their misgivings, the five young women make the jump into the ocean below.

Cast

Production

The film was filmed at Cobham Hall, Kent, Balls Park, Hertford, and the centre of Haworth, England and on location in Los Angeles, California. Children from surrounding schools were selected to be extras in scenes on location at Balls Park, Hertford. Oxford University Lacrosse and Cranbrook Lacrosse Club provided a group of lacrosse playing extras and some referees for the film. Emma Roberts dyed her hair dark brown for this role, however for the beginning part of the film she wears a long, blonde wig. The wrap party was held on September 4, 2007 in London, before some of the cast went to Los Angeles to finish filming.

To celebrate the release of Wild Child, Universal Pictures staged the Wild Child Pink Premiere at the Braehead Xscape in Glasgow, Scotland on Wednesday 30 July. Both stars of the film Emma Roberts (Poppy) and Alex Pettyfer (Freddie) attended.

Reception

Wild Child was released in the U.K on August 15 taking 5th place at the box office with $2,196,366 from 359 theatres with an average of $6,118. In its 4th weekend it dropped to 12th place. As of 2/11/08 Wild Child has made an unexpected $8,235,794. In Australia, Wild Child was released September 18 taking 4th place with only 93 theatres making $426,066. The following week, it made a 60% increase with $680,188 but still slipped to 6th place. On the 16th October, Wild Child fell to 11th. As of 14/11/08, Wild Child's release in Australia has yet again surprised officials with its success making $3,272,241. Wild Child has been released in many other countries, proving popular in some: Netherlands ($1,553,825) and not so popular in others. Wild Child's total worldwide box office is currently sitting at $16,006,918 but is expected to reach $20million once released in bigger markets: France, Germany and Russia around December/January.

Despite being well liked by audiences with growing word of mouth, critics have not been so kind to the movie. Wild Child has a 32% 'Rotten' at Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus that "More mild than wild. This tween comedy mess falls flat on its face due to poor characters, poor direction and poor jokes". The Sun Online gave Wild Child 2/5 saying "WILD? More like mild, unless you think short skirts and “horse face” put-downs are outrageous." Though Urban Cinefile gave Wild Child a much more favourable review stating "The film has an energy and honesty about it: it's lively, funny and smart and the characters are appealing." Metacritic currently has no collaborated reviews for this movie.

DVD Release

Wild Child was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on December 8th 2008. It is also set for release in Australia on the 15th January 2009.

Editing

Wild Child was reportedly written to be classified R by the MPAA but was edited to a 12A for some coarse and suggestive content, sex references and language - all involving teens. People have speculated which scenes may have been cut due to a lapse in the story, such as Poppy retrieving a 'mystery' bag from a bottleshop which was then drunk by the girls before the dance. It is also expected that some scenes may have either been re-shot or dubbed to eliminate coarse language. Words/phrases such as 'biatch' and 'what the eff?' could have possibly been their coarses counterparts. However, Wild Child did keep some of its 'wild' content keeping some 's**t' and when Poppy gives Harriet the finger. Other scenes could have possibly been extended including the scene with Ruby and her boyfriend going to the pool. Many fans of the movie are waiting to see what will be released in the DVD releases and if Universal plans to release a special 'Unrated' cut of the movie.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Wild Child: The Movie Soundtrack Party Album is the soundtrack for the film of the same name, Wild Child. The soundtrack was available on UK and Australia on August 18, 2008. On US the soundtrack hasn't been released and it's expected for late 2008 or early 2009.

Tracklisting

  1. Shut Up and Drive - Rihanna
  2. Let Me Think About It - Ida Corr Ft. DJ Fedde le Grand
  3. About You Now - Sugababes
  4. Say It Right - Nelly Furtado
  5. I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me - Annie
  6. If This Is Love - The Saturdays
  7. Heartbreaker - will.i.am ft. Cheryl Cole
  8. Sweet About Me - Gabriella Cilmi
  9. Can't Speak French - Girls Aloud
  10. Murder on the Dancefloor - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
  11. Ice Cream - New Young Pony Club
  12. Kiss With A Fist - Florence And The Machine
  13. Foundations - Kate Nash
  14. You Think I Don't Care - Jack McManus
  15. Come Around - Timbaland ft. M.I.A.
  16. Tambourine - Eve
  17. Real Wild Child - Sarah Harding

Songs not on the soundtrack but in the movie and trailers :

Trivia

  • Poppy's (Emma Roberts) blonde hair was actually a wig. Emma dyed her hair brown for the filming of this movie and wore a blonde wig for the beginning of the film. She's a natural born brunette.
  • Wild Child was written by Lucy Dahl, Roald Dahl's daughter.
  • In the film, Abbey Mount is said to be a girls school for 11 to 17 year olds. The English system revolves around exams at 16 currently GCSEs {General Certificate of Secondary Education(formerly General Certificate of Education "GCE O-level" or for the less academic Certificate of School Education "CSE"). Those pupils who stay on for what was traditionally called the 6th form study for a further two years to complete GCE A-levels at 18. A-levels are the entry level qualification for University entry. For Poppy to enrol for one year at 16 defies logic.

References

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