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Movies / On DVD / New Best Friend
New Best Friend

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New Best Friend (2002)

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Reviews Counted:38

Fresh:2

Rotten:36

Average Rating:2.9/10

Consensus: Generic, confusing, and trashy, New Best Friend is a laughably bad, obvious campus whodunit.

Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: It's January, the start of a new semester at exclusive Colby University nestled in the Carolina countryside. Near the campus, four young women prepare themselves for the final semester of their... It's January, the start of a new semester at exclusive Colby University nestled in the Carolina countryside. Near the campus, four young women prepare themselves for the final semester of their senior year. In her dingy apartment over the "He's Not Here Tavern," where she lives with her mother, ALICIA GLAZER (Mia Kirshner) organizes her school supplies. She is plain as well as poor. On the other side of town, in an exclusive row house, three beautiful and privileged young coeds start their day: sensuous HADLEY WESTON (Meredith Monroe), luxuriates in a bubble bath with a margarita in hand; her junk-food loving bulemic roommate JULIANNE McINTYRE (Rachel True) wolfs down a huge bowl of cereal and immediately runs into the bathroom to throw it up; and oversexed SYDNEY CONNORS (Dominique Swain) slowly wakes up next to her boyfriend, JOSH (Oliver Hudson), and some poor townie who is shocked to discover how she spent the night. Classes begin and Alicia is paired with Hadley to work on the all-important sociology class senior thesis project titled, "Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way." At first rejected, Alicia is finally accepted into Hadley's clique where she is introduced to a world of privilege and dangerous thrills. But her attempts to become one of them ultimately land her in the hospital. As the local sheriff, ARTIE BONNER (Taye Diggs), tries to determine the chain of events that led to Alicia's collapse, his investigation casts a shadow of responsibility over the untouchable, affluent young women. -- © 2002 TriStar Pictures [More]

Starring: Mia Kirshner, Meredith Monroe, Taye Diggs, Dominique Swain

Starring: Mia Kirshner, Meredith Monroe, Taye Diggs, Dominique Swain, Scott Bairstow, Oliver Hudson, Rachel True, Joanna Canton

Director: Zoe Clarke-Williams

Director: Zoe Clarke-Williams
Screenwriter: Victoria Strouse
Producer: Frank Mancuso
Composer: John Murphy, David A. Hughes
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment

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Reviews for New Best Friend

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Great trash, one of those mediocre movies that in its own crass way is more enjoyable than most things that get nominated for Oscars.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
04/12/02
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle

... digs beyond the usual portrayals of good kids and bad seeds to reveal a more ambivalent set of characters and motivations.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
04/11/02
Sean Axmaker
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A laughably bad student drama that flunks on every level.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
04/12/02
E! Online

This film from Zoe Clarke-Williams is a most predictable regurgitation of teen peer pressure and drug misuse.

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
04/13/02
Boston Phoenix

[Less a movie than] an appalling, odoriferous thing... so rotten in almost every single facet of production that you'll want to crawl up your own *** in embarrassment.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Today | comment Comment
08/27/02
Brent Simon
Brent Simon
Entertainment Today

While the mystery unravels, the characters respond by hitting on each other.

Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | comment Comment
04/11/02
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

A campus drama-cum-whodunit that's obvious and exploitative even by low-bar youthpic standards.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
06/23/08
Dennis Harvey
Dennis Harvey
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

No review available.

comment Comment
09/13/05
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

The story wields through confusingly and often ricochets so unevenly you're downright confused as to what's up and who's where.

Full Review Source: Blunt Review | comment Comment
04/14/02
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Blunt Review

With Zoe Clarke-Williams's lackluster thriller "New Best Friend", who needs enemies? Just another generic drama that has nothing going for it other than its exploitive array of obligatory cheap thrills.

Full Review Source: Movie Eye | comment Comment
04/21/02
Frank Ochieng
Frank Ochieng
Movie Eye

A cautionary after-school special gone completely berserk, an anti-drug movie so loopy that it seems to be on speed itself.

Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment Comment
04/11/02
Frank Swietek
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

Incompetent but inadvertently entertaining.

Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
04/15/02
Jason Anderson
Jason Anderson
eye WEEKLY

It's impossible to even categorize this as a smutty guilty pleasure.

Full Review Source: Aufmuth.com | comment Comment
04/10/02
Jeanne Aufmuth
Jeanne Aufmuth
Aufmuth.com

The movie has very little to offer besides unintentional laughs.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
04/12/02
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

New Best Friend shouldn’t have gone straight to video; it should have gone straight to a Mystery Science Theater 3000 video.

Full Review Source: Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) | comment Comment
06/10/03
Jeffrey Westhoff
Jeffrey Westhoff
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

No big whoop, nothing new to see, zero thrills, too many flashbacks and a choppy ending make for a bad film.

Full Review Source: JoBlo's Movie Emporium | comment Comment
04/10/02
JoBlo
JoBlo
JoBlo's Movie Emporium

A film that loses sight of its own story.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
04/12/02
Kirk Honeycutt
Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The film could have done so much more -- but it just didn't.

Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | comment Comment
11/20/08
Kit Bowen
Kit Bowen
Hollywood.com

Rashomon-for-dipsticks tale.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
04/12/02
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

Represents the depths to which the girls-behaving-badly film has fallen.

comment Comment
04/12/02
Loren King
Loren King
Boston Globe
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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