Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Megan is an all-American girl. A cheerleader. She has a boyfriend. But Megan doesn't like kissing her boyfriend very much. And she's pretty touchy with her cheerleader friends. Her conservative parents worry that she must be a lesbian and send her off to "sexual redirection" school, where she must, with other lesbians and gays learn how to be straight.
But I'm a Cheerleader is a visually distinctive satire of conversion therapy, notable for its boldly stylized candy-colored aesthetic that serves as pointed commentary on gender norms and heteronormative culture. The cinematography and production design are genuinely exceptional, using hyper-saturated pinks and blues to lampoon the rigid binary world the characters inhabit. The film's novelty is high — it was a rare, fearless queer comedy arriving in 2000 that skewered conversion therapy with campy wit before such topics were mainstream. The performances are solid, with Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall charming in the leads, though the ensemble work is uneven. The plot is fairly straightforward and predictable in its arc, functioning more as a vehicle for satire than complex storytelling. The ending is warm and crowd-pleasing but not especially surprising, wrapping things up a bit neatly.