The Hot Chick is a 2002 American
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
about a teenage girl whose body is magically swapped with that of a 30-year-old criminal. It was directed by
Tom BradyTom Brady is a director, writer and producer. He directed The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. His television writing credits include work for The Critic, Sports Night, The Simpsons and Home Improvement. He is an alumnus of Harvard and the University of Hawaii at...
and produced by Guy Riedel for
Happy MadisonHappy Madison Productions is an American film/television production company founded by actor/comedian Adam Sandler in 1999 that is best known for comedy films. Happy Madison takes its name from the films Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, two box office successes starring Sandler himself, both...
and
Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, from a screenplay by
Tom BradyTom Brady is a director, writer and producer. He directed The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. His television writing credits include work for The Critic, Sports Night, The Simpsons and Home Improvement. He is an alumnus of Harvard and the University of Hawaii at...
and
Rob SchneiderRobert Michael "Rob" Schneider is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow:...
. The film stars Schneider as Jessica, the beautiful but selfish "hot chick" of the film's title;
Rachel McAdamsRachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
as the criminal; and
Anna FarisAnna Kay Faris is an American actress, singer and comedienne. She is known for her starring role in the Scary Movie film series, as well as roles in The Hot Chick , Lost in Translation , Just Friends , My Super Ex-Girlfriend , Smiley Face , and The House Bunny...
as Jessica's best friend. Jessica and her cheerleader friends search for Jessica's body while dealing with awkward social situations.
The Hot Chick is a 2002 American
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
about a teenage girl whose body is magically swapped with that of a 30-year-old criminal. It was directed by
Tom BradyTom Brady is a director, writer and producer. He directed The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. His television writing credits include work for The Critic, Sports Night, The Simpsons and Home Improvement. He is an alumnus of Harvard and the University of Hawaii at...
and produced by Guy Riedel for
Happy MadisonHappy Madison Productions is an American film/television production company founded by actor/comedian Adam Sandler in 1999 that is best known for comedy films. Happy Madison takes its name from the films Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, two box office successes starring Sandler himself, both...
and
Touchstone PicturesTouchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...
, from a screenplay by
Tom BradyTom Brady is a director, writer and producer. He directed The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star. His television writing credits include work for The Critic, Sports Night, The Simpsons and Home Improvement. He is an alumnus of Harvard and the University of Hawaii at...
and
Rob SchneiderRobert Michael "Rob" Schneider is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow:...
. The film stars Schneider as Jessica, the beautiful but selfish "hot chick" of the film's title;
Rachel McAdamsRachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
as the criminal; and
Anna FarisAnna Kay Faris is an American actress, singer and comedienne. She is known for her starring role in the Scary Movie film series, as well as roles in The Hot Chick , Lost in Translation , Just Friends , My Super Ex-Girlfriend , Smiley Face , and The House Bunny...
as Jessica's best friend. Jessica and her cheerleader friends search for Jessica's body while dealing with awkward social situations.
Adam SandlerAdam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...
served as executive producer and has a small role in the film as the Mambuza Bongo Player, a character based on one played by Schneider in a
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
sketch. Sisters
TiaTia Dashon Mowry-Hardrict is an American actress. She first gained fame for her teen role as Tia Landry on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister...
and
Tamera MowryTamera Darvette Mowry-Housley is an American actress. She first gained fame for her teen role as Tamera Campbell on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister...
, and singers
Ashlee SimpsonAshlee Nicole Simpson is an American singer and actress. In 2004, she rose to prominence with the success of her number-one debut album Autobiography and the reality series, The Ashlee Simpson Show. In October 2005, following a North American concert tour and a film appearance, Simpson released...
,
Angie StoneAngie Stone is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She has been nominated for three Grammy Award. She is more successful on the charts R&B charts, with four Top 10 albums, forms including a number one album and 10 singles on the R&B chart,...
and
Michelle BranchMichelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper, and was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2003...
also had small roles. Parts of the film were shot at Redondo Union High School and El Segundo High School.
Plot
The film begins in an
AbyssinianEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
castle in 50 BC, where a princess uses a pair of enchanted earrings to escape an
arranged marriageAn arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
by
swapping bodiesA body swap is a storytelling device seen in a variety of fiction, most often in television shows and movies, in which two people exchange minds and end up in each other's bodies. Alternatively, their minds may stay where they are as their bodies adjust...
with a slave girl. When each woman wears one of the earrings, their bodies magically trade places while their minds remain where they were.
The rest of the film is set in the modern-day suburban hometown of Jessica Spencer (McAdams), a popular high-school girl, and her friends April (
Anna FarisAnna Kay Faris is an American actress, singer and comedienne. She is known for her starring role in the Scary Movie film series, as well as roles in The Hot Chick , Lost in Translation , Just Friends , My Super Ex-Girlfriend , Smiley Face , and The House Bunny...
), Keecia (
Maritza MurrayMaritza Murray is an American model and actress. She is best known for her role as Keecia "Ling Ling" Jackson in the movie The Hot Chick. Murray has also appeared in television, appearing on ER, Moesha and One on One, as well as appearing on stage in the play The Less Than Human Club.-External...
), and Lulu (
Alexandra Holden-Life and career:Holden was born in Northfield, Minnesota, the daughter of Kristi and Barry Holden. She played film roles in Drop Dead Gorgeous as Mary Johanson and in Sugar & Spice as Fern Rogers. She also starred in the low budget slasher film Wishcraft.Holden has also had roles in TV and music...
). April is Jessica's best friend, and all four girls are cheerleaders. At school one day, Jessica makes fun of an overweight girl named Hildenburg (Megan Kuhlmann) and a
WiccaWicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
n girl named Eden (
Sam DoumitSamia "Sam" Doumit is an American actress of Irish, French, Lebanese, and German-Jewish descent . Doumit was born in California. She lived in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a Dean's list and honor roll student at Emerson College in Boston before attending the California Institute of the Arts...
). After that, Jessica and her friends visit the local mall, where Jessica gets her rival Bianca (
Maria-Elena LaasMaria-Elena Laas – is an actress and model of Puerto Rican descent.Her acting career in film includes the comedy The Hot Chick and indies Suffering Man's Charity , Kill the Habit , Lunatics, Lovers and Poets and Airplane Disasters...
) into trouble and finds the earrings in an
AfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n-themed store. The earrings are not for sale, so Jessica steals them.
Shortly afterward, a small-time criminal named Clive (Schneider) robs a nearby gas station. When Jessica and her friends stop there and mistake him for an employee, he services their car to avoid raising suspicion. Jessica accidentally drops one of the earrings on the ground, and Clive picks it up after the girls drive away. That evening, in their respective homes, Jessica and Clive put on their earrings. When they wake up the next morning, each of them is trapped in the other's body. This is especially difficult for Jessica, who has a cheering competition and the school
promIn the United States and Canada, a prom, short for promenade, is a formal dance, or gathering of high school students. It is typically held near the end of the senior year. It figures greatly in popular culture and is a major event among high school students...
coming up soon.
After Jessica convinces her friends of who she is, they help her investigate the body swap. Hildenburg, Eden, and Bianca are all innocent, Hildenburg and Eden join Jessica after she apologizes to them, and Eden finds a picture of the earrings on the
internetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. When the girls return to the African store, the shopkeeper explains how the earrings work and tells the girls they must find the other earring soon or the change will become permanent.
Meanwhile, Jessica is hired for two jobs while secretly living with April. At her own home, where she works as a gardener, her parents tell her about their marital problems and she helps them rekindle their sex life. At school, while cleaning the boys' locker room as a janitor, she spies on her boyfriend Billy (Lawrence), who truly loves her, and April's boyfriend Jake (Olsen), who has another girlfriend. Faced with Jake's infidelity, April begins to fall in love with Jessica, who agrees to take her to the prom. At the cheering competition, Jessica signals romantically to Billy while disguised as the school mascot, but when the head of her suit falls off, he becomes confused and leaves with Bianca.
During this time, Clive has been using Jessica's body to make money from men, including Billy, who gives him his money and car, believing he is Jessica. However, on the evening of the prom, Hildenburg sees a video of Clive robbing a man on the television news and goes to the scene of the crime. After finding a business card for the club where Clive works as a
pole dancePole dance is a form of performing art, a combination of dance and gymnastics. It involves dancing and performing acrobatic tricks with a vertical pole and is an increasingly popular form of fitness and dance, practised by many enthusiasts in gyms or dedicated dance studios...
r, she informs Jessica at the prom, and the girls go to the club. When they find Clive, Jessica steals his earring and puts it on herself along with the other one. With the two earrings now on the same person, Jessica's and Clive's bodies return to their original owners. After Jessica makes up with Billy, the film ends with the school's graduation ceremony, followed by a scene in which Clive, running from the law and still dressed in
lingerieLingerie are fashionable and possibly alluring undergarments.Lingerie usually incorporates one or more flexible, stretchy materials like Lycra, nylon , polyester, satin, lace, silk and sheer fabric which are not typically used in more functional, basic cotton undergarments.The term in the French...
, is abducted by a bartender who believes he is a homosexual.
Cast
- Rob Schneider
Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow:...
as Clive Maxtone/Jessica Spencer. Clive is a small-time criminal, and Jessica is a popular high-school girl.
- Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
as Jessica Spencer/Clive Maxtone
- Anna Faris
Anna Kay Faris is an American actress, singer and comedienne. She is known for her starring role in the Scary Movie film series, as well as roles in The Hot Chick , Lost in Translation , Just Friends , My Super Ex-Girlfriend , Smiley Face , and The House Bunny...
as April, Jessica's best friend
- Matthew Lawrence
Matthew William Lawrence is an American actor known for his leading role in the movie Cheats with Trevor Fehrman and his role of Jack Hunter on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World from 1997 to 2000, and his roles in movies such as The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, and Mrs...
as Billy, Jessica's boyfriend
- Eric Christian Olsen
Eric Christian Olsen is an American actor. He currently portrays Detective Marty Deeks on the CBS television series NCIS: Los Angeles.-Early life:...
as Jake, April's boyfriend
- Robert Davi
Robert John Davi is an American actor and singer. He has played such roles as Vietnam veteran and Special Agent Johnson in Die Hard, the villainous Jake Fratelli in The Goonies, and Al Torres in Showgirls...
as Stan, April's father
- Melora Hardin
Melora Diane Hardin is an American actress, best known for her roles as Jan Levinson on NBC's The Office and Trudy Monk on USA's Monk.-Early life:...
as Carol Spencer, Jessica's mother
- Angie Stone
Angie Stone is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She has been nominated for three Grammy Award. She is more successful on the charts R&B charts, with four Top 10 albums, forms including a number one album and 10 singles on the R&B chart,...
as Madame Mambuza, a purveyor of African goods
- Matt Weinberg
-Biography:Weinberg was born in Los Angeles, California, the first son of Dana and Larry Weinberg, a public relations executive. His younger brother is Mike Weinberg, who is also an actor.Weinberg started acting in the late 1990s, appearing mostly on television...
as Booger Spencer, Jessica's cross-dressing younger brother
- Alexandra Holden
-Life and career:Holden was born in Northfield, Minnesota, the daughter of Kristi and Barry Holden. She played film roles in Drop Dead Gorgeous as Mary Johanson and in Sugar & Spice as Fern Rogers. She also starred in the low budget slasher film Wishcraft.Holden has also had roles in TV and music...
as Lulu, Jessica's red-headed friend
- Maritza Murray
Maritza Murray is an American model and actress. She is best known for her role as Keecia "Ling Ling" Jackson in the movie The Hot Chick. Murray has also appeared in television, appearing on ER, Moesha and One on One, as well as appearing on stage in the play The Less Than Human Club.-External...
as Keecia "Ling-Ling" Jackson, Jessica's friend, a girl of mixed racial background. She feels embarrassed by her mother's clumsy attempts to bond with her, but she learns to accept her mother and her own identity by the end of the film.
- Tia Mowry
Tia Dashon Mowry-Hardrict is an American actress. She first gained fame for her teen role as Tia Landry on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister...
as Venetia, a high-school girl, Sissie's twin sister
- Tamera Mowry
Tamera Darvette Mowry-Housley is an American actress. She first gained fame for her teen role as Tamera Campbell on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister...
as Sissie, a high-school girl, Venetia's twin sister
- Michelle Branch
Michelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper, and was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2003...
as As Club DJ
- Jodi Long
Jodi Long is an American actress.She was raised in Queens, New York. Her parents are Kimiye , a showgirl performer of Japanese American descent, and Lawrence K...
as Keecia's enthusiastic but socially inept Korean mother
- Lee Garlington
Ann Leslie "Lee" Garlington is an American actress.Garlington was born in Teaneck, New Jersey. She has guest starred in a number of notable television series, including The West Wing, 7th Heaven, 8 Simple Rules, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Judging Amy, L.A...
as Ms. Marjorie Bernard, the vice principal of Jessica's school
- Leila Kenzle
Leila Kenzle is an American actress best known for her role as Fran Devanow on Mad About You.Kenzle was born in Patchogue, Long Island, New York, the daughter of Lee, an antiques dealer, and Kurt Kenzle, who worked in electrical supply sales. Before moving to Los Angeles to become an actress she...
as Julie
- Fay Hauser as Mrs. Thomas
- Michael O'Keefe
Michael Raymond O'Keefe is an American film and television actor.- Early life :O'Keefe was born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr. in Mount Vernon, New York, the oldest of seven children in a devoutly Roman Catholic Irish American family. His father was a law professor at Fordham University, as well as...
as Richard Spencer, Jessica's father
- Sam Doumit
Samia "Sam" Doumit is an American actress of Irish, French, Lebanese, and German-Jewish descent . Doumit was born in California. She lived in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a Dean's list and honor roll student at Emerson College in Boston before attending the California Institute of the Arts...
as Eden, a Wiccan girl
- Megan Kuhlmann as Hildenburg, a heavyset girl with an interest in chemistry
- Maria-Elena Laas
Maria-Elena Laas – is an actress and model of Puerto Rican descent.Her acting career in film includes the comedy The Hot Chick and indies Suffering Man's Charity , Kill the Habit , Lunatics, Lovers and Poets and Airplane Disasters...
as Bianca, Jessica's social rival from another school
Casting
Singers
Ashlee SimpsonAshlee Nicole Simpson is an American singer and actress. In 2004, she rose to prominence with the success of her number-one debut album Autobiography and the reality series, The Ashlee Simpson Show. In October 2005, following a North American concert tour and a film appearance, Simpson released...
and
Michelle BranchMichelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper, and was subsequently nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2003...
each make their feature-film debut with cameo roles.
Schneider's mother Pilar appears as a judge of the cheerleading contest.
Cultural references
- When Bianca is framed for shoplifting, she is taken away by two security guards. One of the guards says to her "Let's go, Winona," a reference to actress Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
who was arrested for shoplifting at a Saks Fifth Avenue store.
- Surveillance footage of the real Clive in Jessica's body, beating up and robbing a man, is shown on the evening news. After doing so, he leaves, as the beaten man reaches up crying "Why?!" in a reference to the Nancy Kerrigan
Nancy Ann Kerrigan is a two-time American Olympic figure skating medalist and 1993 U.S. champion.-Early life and skating career:...
attack of the early/mid 90's.
Release
The Hot Chick was originally Rated R, but a few scenes were edited out in order to receive the PG-13 Rating.
Before the film was released theatrically previews for the DVD indicated the title had been "Miss Popularity".
Box office
The film opened at #5 in the U.S. Box office in the weekend of December 13, 2002, raking in $7,401,146 USD, averaging $3,338 for the first 2,217 theatres where it was shown.
It went on to earn a total worldwide gross of $54,639,553.
Critical response
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gave the film a score of 21% based on 80 reviews.
Critic
Richard RoeperRichard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
damned the film with faint praise saying "it's in color. And, it was mostly in focus."
Home media
The Hot Chick was released January 25, 2005. The DVD featured the deleted scenes that would have made the film an R, including an alternate ending.