From Justin to Kelly: A Visibly Challenged Musical
Directed by Robert Iscove
“Hey, you’re the girl from the beach.”
Justin Guarini
From Justin to Kelly is classed as a musical romantic comedy released in 2003 following Kelly Clarkson’s triumph on American Idol and Justin Guarini by proxy, who was the runner-up. This movie is dubbed as such but absolutely bombs in the romantic comedy category as there are neither of those elements present. However, its absurdity did spur on a few laughs and maybe even a statement declaring “What is happening?” The movie follows the lives of two college students, Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, who happen to fall in love whilst on spring break. Then, the film proceeds to spend 80% of the runtime on the beach. The ‘plot’ is there if you squint hard enough, and the characters are severely underdeveloped with poor communication between the lot of them. Crazily enough, it seems that the main characters fell in love based on vibes because Kim Fuller struggled drastically in crafting inspired dialogue.
Albeit it’s not just the characters that have a tough time, but the directing struggles as useless scenes that do not advance the plot are peppered throughout and stick out like a sore thumb. Coming from Robert Iscove, the same director responsible for She’s All That (1999), it is not surprising that the direction seemed a bit aimless. The bigwigs from American Idol should have simply created a visualizer album if they wanted to promote the songs from their album, it would have gone way better than this commercial failure. Though, I will say I enjoyed the duets, songs and choreography sang by Justin, Kelly, and Anika Noni Rose. It is truly a terrible movie, and the generous rating is solely based on the choreography and the songs.
The Island Cinephile 
