Picture This (film)

Plot and cast

Mandy Gilbert (Ashley Tisdale) is an unpopular teenager at her high school. She lives with her overbearing father Tom (Kevin Pollak), and has only two friends, Alexa (Lauren Collins) and Cayenne (Shenae Grimes). Mandy is constantly bullied and embarrassed by the popular girls of school, particularly Lisa Cross (Cindy Busby). However, it so happens that she is in love with Lisa's boyfriend, the popular Drew Patterson (Robbie Amell). She is about to turn 18 and wants her life to change. She wants to be noticed by Drew.

When she discovers Drew is on the school swimming team, she decides to apply as well. At the pool, she loses her glasses and hits her head then falls in the swimming pool. It results in Mandy being knocked unconscious and falling into the water. When she awakens, she finds out Drew gave her CPR. Drew now gets to meet Mandy and they talk to each other. Lisa thinks Mandy is a threat and tries to humiliate her, by taking Drew to the pet shop where Mandy works. Because Mandy is a clerk there, Lisa hopes Drew will laugh at her. Things take a different way, as Drew doesn't care about Mandy being a clerk there. They converse yet again, and Drew invites her to go to the Commons the next day.

Meanwhile, Mandy is annoyed with having an old dinosaur of a phone, which doesn't seem to work all the time. The next day, Mandy turns 18 and is surprised by her father with a new and expensive video phone. She also receives contacts and thinks her life couldn't be any better. However, she is scared when Tom reveals his intentions in moving with her when she goes to college at UCSB next year. Mandy is too afraid to say anything about it, though. Later that day, she flirts with Drew at the lake near school, which her dad specifically said not to go to. When Lisa is informed that Mandy is with Drew, she is outraged and uses Mandy's video phone to film it, which she accidentally dropped and shows it to Tom, who then confronts Mandy. Before going home, Drew asks her out as his date at his party on Saturday. Mandy happily accepts. At home, Tom is disappointed in Mandy's actions and grounds her, saying she cannot go out or use the phone, television, or Internet. Mandy is shocked with her father, since the punishment means she is unable to attend Drew's party.

Mandy is able to manipulate her father into letting her go to study at Alexa's place. There are some conditions, though: Tom checks in with her every half an hour with the video phones. Mandy was told by her dad to video Alexa's mom. She asks Alexa if she has any home videos of her mother. Alexa and Cayenne search for home videos. They find a home video and Mandy videos the television while trying to persuade her father that they are supervised by an adult; her dad is convinced.

On their way to the party, Mandy discovers her dress is destroyed by Lisa. They head to the mall, where Lisa secretly slips Macadamia nuts (which Mandy is allergic to) into Mandy's drink. This results in Mandy's head swelling up, but luckily, Alexa has a medicine to help her with allergies. Mandy drinks a lot of the medicine and falls asleep before falling into a fountain. They later find a dress, and Tom calls yet again. Mandy's signal is falling away and Tom announces he will call Alexa's line. Mandy gets her signal back just in time and knows to convince him she is studying.

Back at the parking lot, Mandy, Alexa and Cayenne witness their car being towed away. They enter a singing competition to win the money to get the car back. Alexa, however, has stage fright, so Mandy takes over and stuns the public. Her father calls her in the middle of her performance. She begs the audience to help her out and convinces her dad that the audience is the screen of a DVD they're watching. They later win the competition and pay the fine for her towed car. Lisa has bought the same dress as well, and tries to stop Mandy from going to the party by giving a guard money in order to bar them from getting in. She also calls Tom and says Mandy is expected at a party and to bring booze. Tom is worried, and immediately calls Mandy. They are yet again able to mislead him, but this results in them almost being involved in a fatal car accident.

Tom has his own problems as well, though. His sister Marsha drops off her trouble-making son Peyton to be babysat; however, Peyton destroys Tom's model apartment of the place where he and Mandy are supposed to live when she is at college. As a result, Tom is crushed and thinks he failed in being a father to Mandy. Meanwhile, the girls are able to cross the guard. In Drew's house, Mandy notices Lisa wearing the same dress. She wants to give up and go home, and Alexa now reveals Drew's intentions in using her. However, Cayenne realizes what she has been through to be here, and says that it is fate. Mandy is encouraged by Cayenne and slow dances with Drew. When he wants to go to a private place with her, she excuses herself for a minute.

Mandy tells Alexa and Cayenne she wants to admit the truth to her father about her whereabouts. When she does, Tom tells her he trusts her, and asks her if he has been a good dad. Mandy responds he is a great dad, and decides not to tell she is actually at a party. She next goes to a private room with Drew. Since Alexa and Cayenne have told Mandy about the Patterson legend, she expects the worst. However, much to her surprise, the "private room" actually turns out to be Drew's photography studio, which filled with pictures of his family, friends, pets, and one of Mandy that he took at the lake (which he calls his favorite). Seeing this, Mandy is relieved and realizes he just wants to spend time with her. Drew says his palms are sweaty, and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, but does not tell her what he's doing. When Mandy hears the running water, she thinks that it is the shower and becomes uncomfortable, so she leaves. Meanwhile, Lisa and her friends are attempting to place a curse on Mandy. Lisa has been drinking all night, and Alexa films her vomiting from under a glass table. The clip is playing on the video screens as the girls exit the party.

Back at home, Tom shows Mandy the updated detachable version of the model of the home he built for the two of them. However, Mandy sees this as a metaphor for her relationship with her father, and explains that she doesn't want to be detachable. Tom replies that he trusts her and should let her go. He is aware that she went to the party, but is not disappointed. In fact, he is also pleased to know that Mandy walked out on Drew's advances, which Mandy says would result in social suicide.

At the end of the film, Mandy and her friends attend their Senior Prom. Prom king Drew is about to crown Lisa as Prom Queen, but realizes that he loves Mandy, not Lisa. After spotting Mandy, Drew brings her up to the center stage and crowns her as his queen. They share a passionate kiss in the light, as the prom goers (including Alexa and Cayenne) snap photos of the kiss on their camera phones.

Production

The film was executive produced by Tisdale’s company Blondie Girl Productions and is directed by Stephen Herek. Tisdale said, "When I read the script for Picture This!, I just fell in love with the lead character Mandy, this goofy, unpopular, girl next door who knows what she wants, but isn’t willing to sacrifice who she is to get it... Mandy’s real and I think a lot of kids will relate to that. It reminds me a lot of when I was in high school. I wasn’t really in the popular group, but I wasn’t in the nerdy group. I was somewhere in the middle, too." Tisdale performs the hit 80's single, "Shadows Of The Night" in the film.

The film was shot on location in Montreal, Quebec, during the summer months of 2007. Fender instruments, Juicy Couture, and Swiss Army all contributed props to the film. The scene where the "girls" swerve out of control on "the freeway" was actually shot in the borough of Verdun, on a residential street. The scene where Mandy receives a call from her dad and has to pretend that she is not driving was shot on a main street in the borough of LaSalle, right next to the borough of Verdun. The scene shot at the "mall" when they were shopping is Fairview shopping mall in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, a large residential area in Montreal. The school scenes are at École secondaire du Chêne-Bleu, in Pincourt.

Critical reception

Amazon stated that "Technology is the way of the future and every high school student needs a video phone, at least according to Mandy and her friends Alexa and Cayenne. When Mandy's overprotective Dad finally gives her a video phone and a pair of contacts for her 18th birthday, Mandy feels like her image, and her entire world, is about to change for the better—especially when her long-lived crush Drew Patterson actually notices her. What Mandy doesn't count on is that her father will use her new phone to track her every move and that Drew's attention will inspire Lisa, the hottest, most popular girl in school, to begin plotting against Mandy with a vengeance. A full 90 minutes of serious attitude, technological obsession, deception, and just plain meanness, this film appeals primarily to the preteen and teen audience and manages to convey the message that goodness and trust will prevail despite enormous odds. Parents will most likely find the film distasteful, though they could potentially learn something about letting go, and it should be noted that there are a fair number of sexual references like "hump and dump," virgins being "deflowered," and "do her and dump her.".

Common Sense stated that: "Parents need to know that the teens in this movie are inseparable from their video phones and sometimes border on voyeurism with their exploitation of peers' embarrassing moments. In one scene, for instance, a girl snaps a photo of her classmate's partially exposed thong underwear and emails it to the entire student body to humiliate her. While there's nothing beyond a kiss and slow dances to see, teens use terms like "do her and dump her" and "hump and dump" to refer to potential casual sex. The main character's rebellious teen behavior (sneaking out to attend a party, lying to parents, etc.) is cast in a humorous light, but she does learn valuable lessons about listening to her conscience". ()

Music and sound

The soundtrack of Picture This was never available to download in any kind of stores. It features the song "Shadows of the Night", performed by Ashley Tisdale. Also the song "4ever" by The Veronicas could be heard on the promotional movies spots.

DVD

The movie was released on DVD in several states in the United States on July 22, 2008. The movie was released on Blu-ray on March 29, 2011. The DVD features: