Ultimately the biggest failure of this film is that it isn't full of the unintentional comedy that its sensationalist title might have you expect. Generally, films like these aimed at its specific demographic have the tendency to be pretty hilarious in how over-the-top the scenarios they depict are. And while this film does have the over-the-top element to it, it's not very humorous for various reasons I'll explain.
The first thing is that this film seems so unfocused. You'd think that the film would be about the evil dangers of sexting but it ends up taking up an anti-bullying angle very soon into the film, followed by a PSA about texting and driving? So much of the focus is also lost because it's more preoccupied with the mystery aspect of the story which is, in itself, extremely convoluted. It has so many things going on yet it doesn't execute any of them particularly well. In the end, the film almost seems to be about nothing- it's a glorified revenge plot that is so buried in wanting to have some kind of message, that it can't decide and scattershots to all of the trendy ones and hopes one of them sticks. This isn't thematic depth, this is writing on the level of a high school sophomore working on their first draft of a screenplay or a really smart middle school kid- but not for a film, made-for-TV or not.
The story is ultimately a mystery-revenge one that spends a lot of its time going nowhere, full of "plot twists" that, I'm guessing, are supposed to surprise the viewer. I include saying it's a revenge plot because, as the main character basically says, she doesn't care if another tragedy like the one that happened to her struck any of the other students in the school, because they were complicit, and that she would rather see them punished... almost giving the subtext that she would rather the same thing happen to someone else, and this is framed as the righteous opinion. Sad thing is, she does get her retribution and the character seems pretty satisfied with it. Of course, her revenge isn't something she takes, herself, but something that just happens, which, of course, makes the main character to still be out as the moral superior in this situation.
The characters in this film are so poorly written and everything about this film's writing is so unrealistic. Living in the suburbs- one of the most insular and comfortable places of privilege one can live in, won't have their houses broken in to, vandalized, have their windows broken, and have threatening letters illegally put in their mailbox because her daughter took nudes of herself which ended up getting sent to everyone. I was astonished seeing that the main character, as vengeful as she is in every action she takes, is treated like her own racial class because of it. This is the sort of catastrophism of a situation that can only be sold to and believed by this film's target demographic.
This film is full of fake crying and it becomes a bit tedious to see after a while. On a good note, Rachel Delante's performance is so surprisingly good it outshines everyone else's. Maybe it's a big fish in a small bowl scenario, but her performance in this film is the single most believable performance in this film. The other performances would probably have been better if the writing wasn't the way it is but, as it stands, the performances are appropriate for a made-for-TV film.
The soundtrack is a surprising high point for this film. Most of it is light pop rock but the tracks they chose were good and helped distract from most of the rest of the film, if only for a moment. Though, I can't say that high school kids in 2011 (I was one in 2011) were going to after parties where a live pop punk band would be playing, that seems very 80s to me and it was probably the funniest thing about this film.
As a small side note, I noticed a bunch of small, but distracting audio issues that seemed bad, even for a made-for-TV film.
As a whole, this film is a disappointment. It's hardly about sexting, it's barely about bullying, and only has a texting and driving scene at the very end to serve the interest of the main character's real goal to cold, hard retribution. This film is the depiction of a worst case scenario that is framed as something that could happen very easily, and is something that I could see definitely being shown to kids by schools in attempts to scare them the same way this film scares the schools and parents themselves. It's nothing special and, ultimately, it's because of that that I found this to be a bit disappointing.
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