I'm joining this conversation five years after the fact, but here goes anyway.
1. I agree with you on this one. This particular loose end got wrapped up in a rush. I would guess that maybe, hoping to win favour and a little mercy, one of the stepsisters or even Fiona herself told Sam that the rejection letter was fake. And the real one was an acceptance letter. But I definitely didn't buy it still being in the trash. It would have made more sense if Fiona had kept the real letter hidden somewhere in the house or something.
2. The phone was locked. One of his friends suggests something along those lines and Austin says that the phone is password protected and he can't unlock it. He can only see the text messages that the phone is receiving.
3. I guess we just have to assume the school has a very lenient policy for that kind of thing ;). But I don't see this as a particularly big problem. I can suspend my disbelief enough to let Austin put up all those posters lol!
4. The stepsisters might have but Fiona didn't. When she looked over at Carter's car, she only saw Carter. She suspected something was up, but when she found Sam in the diner afterwards, she dismissed what the girls claimed to have seen and accepted, for the moment, that Sam didn't sneak out. No proof, no punishment basically. Plus, I also think Fiona was arrogant enough to presume that Sam would never dare defy her. That's why she initially dismisses her daughters when they try to tell her that Sam was in Carter's car.
5 & 6. I disagree. These two moments are about setting up character dynamics. It establishes Rhonda's loyalty and protectiveness over Sam, as well as her dislike of Fiona.
7. I'll give you this one. It's another instance where we're being asked to suspend disbelief so that moment of comedy can play between Austin and the sisters.
8. This was pretty much Sam's point when she told him, "You were looking, but not really seeing". She even asked him, while she was wearing the mask, "how can you not know who I am?" which implies she her self knows her disguise is not that good. But because she didn't run with the cool kids, as many times as Austin saw her, he never bothered to remember or really notice her.
9. Carter needs some sort of pay-off for that moment of bravery when he reveals his identity to Shelby, only to see her true colours when she dismisses him. Instead, Shelby is left chasing after him while he has a new girlfriend and is no longer interested in someone as vapid and shallow as Shelby.
10. I think that this was (a) a weak attempt at humour and (b) character set-up. That moment feeds into Sam's perception of Austin as a stereotypical, shallow jock. Which makes the revelation later on that he's Nomad, that much more jarring for her.
11. To confront Austin. It's also about demonstrating her newly discovered confidence and boldness. In the first half of the movie, Sam would never have marched into a crowded boys locker room to confront Austin in front of all his peers. The fact that she does reinforces her declaration that she no longer cares what other people think of her. After being publically humiliated, having Sam confront Austin in a public arena (like the boys locker room) helps demonstrate that she's taking back her power. That moment wouldn't have had the same resonance if she just quietly took him aside.
12. It was pretty small and cramped. We know Sam is treated badly by her stepmother. I don't think having her sleep on a stained mattress with a thin, tattered sheet was necessary. The adaptation doesn't always need to be so literal.
13. Paralyzed by shock and embarrassment? More likely a convenient plot device to push the story into the final act.
14. I don't see this as a problem. Austin's conflict throughout the film is the fact he's caught between feeling pressured to conform to other people's expectations of who he should be and living up to his own expectations. It's hard to go against the herd and go your own way, so Austin stuck with the immature cool kids. By the end of the film, he's brave enough to be his own person. I also think it's worth mentioning that Austin's friends don't really exist as characters, but rather caricatures of the cliquey mean girls and insensitive, dumb jock stereotypes.
15. To demonstrate their loyalty to Sam.
16. She honestly believed that, after her public humiliation of Sam, she and Austin would get back together. Probably because he made no move to defend Sam and pretty much avoided her after that incident. She calls out because she can't believe he's still choosing Sam, after all that.
17. Basically for dramatic effect. You are meant to be uncomfortable and really feel for Sam in that moment because of her peers' being so cruel to her. If only a few people were laughing and mocking her, it wouldn't be as dramatically powerful. Although, I agree, they could have had one or two teachers at the end of the skit attempt to quiet the students and stop the jeering.
18. Maybe because it's an "uncool" car. So it shows how Austin really is done with pretensions of popularity and being "in". He's now firmly substance over style. So he and Sam take her beat-up car, instead of the trendy SUV.
19. Again, it's a necessary plot device. If Sam finds the will earlier, there's no Cinderella story. Maybe she hadn't read that book since her father died.
20. Poetic justice. When she ran the diner, she always insisted on making the staff wear those ridiculous roller skates. So now, she gets a taste of her own medicine.
I enjoyed this film for the fluffy, light weight, popcorn movie fare it was intended to be. Although, I did take issue with the gross double standards Sam and Austin were held to:
The whole reason Sam is reluctant to reveal her true identity is because she fears he will judge her and won't accept her. And yet, when Austin reveals himself as Nomad, Sam does to him, exactly what she was afraid he'd do to her: she judges Austin, jumps to conclusions about him based on a superficial perception of his "jock" persona, and, initially, she doesn't accept him. I thought to myself, doesn't anyone see a problem with the blatant hypocrisy of that? Not to mention the irony.
That's my two cents worth.
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