Just One of the Girls (1993, Canada)

Chris (Corey Haim) is a lively teenage boy but he becomes the target of repeated bullying by a gang led by Kurt. Haim was 21 when the film was released, and the character Chris is supposed to be sixteen.

Chris is at a women's clothes shop seeing his sister there, when the bullies pull up outside. Expecting trouble, Chris dives into the interior of the shop, and Kurt swaggers in to find him. Suspecting the changing room, he pulls the curtain aside, only to find -- as he thinks -- a girl in there. We can easily see it's Chris, of course.

Well, Chris tries some boxing lessons from his father, but it is fairly obvious the bullies are more powerful than he is. So one morning he flounces down from his bedroom wearing some of his sister's clothes. She seems remarkably unsurprised by this, only advising him that the striped blouse doesn't go with the plaid skirt.

Chris asks for some more helpful advice, which seems to be over very briefly, and Chris is off to the music school he is so keen on.

The bully intercepts this girl who is strangely familiar on the way in, but Chris evades him, and after a couple of nerve-wracking encounters with teachers, he takes refuge in the girls' lavatory, where a vampish girl is checking herself in the mirror.

After a music lesson, there is gymnastics. Chris realises that this could blow his cover so he gets a friend to forge him a letter giving a medical reason against participating. The rather excessively stern teacher sends him to clean out the shower room, and inevitably a number of well developed girls come in and strip naked, distracting him a little. In fact he falls, and the girls all gather round him to see that he is all right.

Chris has discovered that being a girl gives him a unique opportunity to be up close with other girls, one in particular, Marie Stark, (Nicole Eggert, also 21) even with their clothes on, and in pursuing this prospect he signs up to join the cheerleaders at the school. Here he is in a first practice session.

He develops his girly friendship with her and gets invited home and they have a long chat discussing Marie's boyfriends and relationships. However Kurt is there and it emerges that Kurt is Marie's brother. At first Chris feels intimidated by him, but quickly discovers that as a girl, she can manipulate him too. Kurt is still being a nuisance to Chris's friends, so at school the next day Chris takes the opportunity to work on Kurt some more. Leading him on, Chris persuades Kurt to apologise to Frank, his main victim at present.

Back with Marie at a bar, things aren't going so well, as Marie enthuses about her boyfriend John ... obviously a rival to Chris's real motives. Marie goes off with John and Chris now bumps into Kurt, who offers him a lift home. Chris protests that Kurt drives too fast, so Kurt tells Chris to drive. This leaves Kurt's hands free to roam while they are on the road, a development that Chris seems not to have thought through. Arriving at Chris's house, Kurt steals a snog which startles Chris too.

Comparing notes with Marie at school the next day, Marie suggests meeting up with Chris at Chris's place next week, to avoid Kurt. Chris agrees, wondering how he is going to explain all that too his parents.

Chris's teacher now interviews him about what she assumes to be lesbian tendencies, as she has noticed Chris watching the girls very closely. Chris thinks she knows the truth and she turns suddenly hostile, but Chris lies that he has been a transvestite ever since puberty, and the teacher suddenly says that he can continue at the school, but that she will give him counselling daily.

Meanwhile Marie's date with her boyfriend didn't go well, and they have broken up. So Marie comes round to Chris's house for some sympathy; luckily the name Chris is gender-ambiguous, so when she calls, Chris's father assumes that Marie is a girl-friend. Chris has just arrived back in girl-mode and narrowly escaped getting seen by his parents. He was upstairs changing back into male mode when Marie arrives, and is called down by his father. He can't blow his cover to Marie, and he can't appear as a girl, so in desperation he appears in a dressing gown and towel turban.

Marie goes upstairs and Chris's sister Julie arrives home, and goes up and commiserates. Chris goes in looking just about female enough -- Julie already knows Chris as a girl, of course.

Chris goes round to Marie's house, but Kurt realises he has fallen in love with Chris; so he goes round to see "her". Chris's father answers the door and says that Chris is out, so Kurt hands overt he bunch of flowers he has bought for Chris and asks the father to give it to "her". There is a love-note in the bunch, which Chris's father reads.

Late that night, Chris's father asks him outright if he is gay, and Chris concocts an unlikely story about Kurt to try to explain the flowers away. His father wants to go to the school to complain about Kurt's behaviour, but Chris manages to deflect him. When everything seems to be more or less explained, the father notices a bra hanging out of a drawer that Chris uses, but he says nothing for now.

At school, Chris gets selected for the cheerleaders' team, and he goes on a weekend camp. But Marie's mother phones Chris's father while Chris is away, and she mentions that Chris is Marie's best girl-friend -- hasn't he seen the photograph of Chris and Marie in the cheerleaders' team?

At the camp, Chris is practising a routine with Marie in their shared bedroom. Tired, they flop onto a bed, and Chris suffers a lapse of judgment and steals a kiss from Marie, resulting in her running off, disgusted.

Chris's parents have just arrived because of Marie's mother's information; they burst into the bedroom; Chris has taken his wig off, but the bra is a bit of a give-away.

The parents take Chris away in disgust (despite the Mother's pleas).

But Kurt has arrived, hoping to see his girl-friend Chris; the girls' dormitory area is barred to men, but he has concocted some crude drag to get past security. He barges in to the wrong room, and sees his sister Marie instead.

Kurt has become smitten with Chris and he pours out his heart to his sister; Marie thinks she has just discovered that Chris is a lesbian, and doesn't know how to break this news to Kurt.

Anyway, the climax of the cheerleaders' training has arrived. Chris has received a great offer of training for his musical career with a recording company, and he decides to end his female role after today's event. Marie is rather tense in the circumstances.

But Chris's father has phoned the school to check that Chris is there; yes, says the school administrator, "she" is in the school. Chris's parents storm off to the school.

The cheerleaders have to choose a leader for the next term, and each of the girls will go up to the microphone to say something in her own favour. Chris is called up just as his parents burst in to the room.

Chris decides the only course is to tell everyone the truth now. Kurt is there to support his girlfriend, and his humiliation is huge in front of his macho friends.

Marie rejects Chris's apologies, and says she can't forgive his deception. However, when Chris gives a concert as part of his new contract work, feelings seem to have softened enough for everyone to live happily ever after.

HF March 2005

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