Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

According to Sigmund Freud, 'the great question that has never been answered' is: 'What does a woman want?' Freud, who turned down a lucrative Hollywood offer from Samuel Goldwyn, would not have been satisfied by What a Girl Wants, a remake of the William Douglas Home play, The Reluctant Debutante, first filmed by Vincente Minnelli in 1958.
The 17-year-old Amanda Bynes, leader of America's current posse of 'tween-queens', stars as Daphne Reynolds, who comes to London in search of her father, Lord Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth), future Prime Minister. He doesn't know of her existence. Her mother, the love of his life, was an American hippie (Kelly Preston) with whom he went through a Bedouin form of marriage in Morocco, though she advises her daughter: 'Getting to know someone just because you share the same DNA isn't the answer.'
Apart from this popular use of DNA, little effort has gone into updating Home's play and most of the film's notions about English snobbishness and American egalitarianism are identical with those already stale in pre-Swinging London. Daphne disrupts starchy parties, pushes a toff into the Thames during the Henley regatta, falls into Prince Charles's lap at the Royal Fashion Show, and gets a debs' ball rocking with the help of a British singer (Oliver James), who's been refused a place in the upper classes because his mother married beneath her.
'No hugs please, I'm British,' says her aristocratic grandmother (Eileen Atkins ), but concedes that 'You Rock!' One feels sorry for Atkins, Firth, Jonathan Pryce and other British actors having to demean themselves playing second fiddle to the tiresome Amanda Bynes in such trash.


VOCABULARY:


to concede - przyznawać, uznawać

to demean - poniżać (się)

debs' ball - bal debiutantek, stary brytyjski zwyczaj – młode dziewczęta, które miały zostać wprowadzone do towarzystwa brały udział w specjalnym, eleganckim balu.

to disrupt - zakłócać, przerywać

hippie - hippis, hippiska

in search of - w poszukiwaniu

lap - kolana

lucrative - lukratywny, korzystny, zyskowny

married beneath him/her - popełnić mezalians, polśubić kogoś z klasy niższej

notion - opinia, mniemanie

to play second fiddle - grać drugie skrzypce, pozostawać w cieniu

posse - duża, zorganizowana grupa

to rock - tańczyć lub spiewać rocka

snobbishness - snobizm

stale - wyświechtany, przestarzały, nudny, męczący, nużący

starchy - sztywny, nadęty

tiresome - męczący, dokuczliwy, nieznośny

toff - arystokrata, ważniak, (lekko negatywne)

to turn down - odrzucać

’You Rock Am. slang: jesteś super!


TEST

• « poprz.
• nast. »