What Never Been Kissed Actually Is
Never Been Kissed is a 1999 American comedy-drama directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Drew Barrymore as Josie Geller, a sarcastic newspaper reporter who returns to high school as a student to complete an assignment. The film was written by Piper Laurie and Melissa Mathison, who based some of the material on her own experiences. It grossed about $76 million worldwide against a $30 million budget and has since developed a solid cult following on home video and streaming. The film is currently available to stream on platforms like Amazon Prime Video and Hulu in the United States, though availability shifts occasionally depending on licensing deals. You can rent or buy it on Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube for around $3.99 to $4.99 if streaming isn't working out. I'd avoid sketchy free sites — they tend to have terrible audio sync and pop-up ad problems that make the experience worse than just paying a dollar for the rental. The original DVD release from 20th Century Fox included some decent extras: a behind-the-scenes featurette called "Behind the Assignment," theatrical trailers, and a deleted scene or two. The 2019 re-release for the film's 20th anniversary added an audio commentary track by Drew Barrymore and Ryan Murphy, which is actually worth listening to. They discuss the casting process, the screenplay revisions, and how the film nearly got shopped as a straight comedy instead of the more character-driven piece it ended up being.
One thing people often get wrong about the movie is that it's purely a teen comedy. It's not. The script does actual work examining nostalgia, the pressure of covering your old life, and the weird limbo of being an adult who still hasn't figured things out. Josie's storyline with her brother Sam, played by Michael Vartan, is genuinely sweet without being saccharine. Gillian Jacobs plays her high school friend Denise, and her performance — particularly the graduation speech scene — carries more emotional weight than the rest of the film's comedy beats. I've recommended this film to people in different contexts over the years, and the one piece of advice I always give is to watch it with the audio commentary disabled on the first viewing. The commentary track is informative but constant, and it completely drains the naive energy the film relies on for its early scenes. Let yourself believe in Josie's world first, then go back and listen to Murphy and Barrymore explain how they built it.
