To meet the ever-growing demand for new and fresh content, Netflix has started bringing in pre-streaming platforms and classic films, giving older people a chance to revisit their teenage years and youngsters a glimpse into how films were before the smartphone took over. This week Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth’s What a Girl Wants hit Netflix and the film is already trending on number seven in Pakistan.
Read more – Netflix to release a new movie every week in 2021
The premise of What a Girl Wants is as simple. A young teenager Daphne (Bynes) living in New York with her single mother, on her 17th birthday decides that she is done waiting for her father to come, so she decides to fly across the Atlantic to London to find her father Lord Henry Dashwood (Firth). Her parents had been pulled apart before her birth by external forces and Henry had no idea that he had fathered a child. Naturally, when Daphne turns up on his doorstep, he is shocked and turns her away – more so at the behest of his evil fiancée Glynis – but Daphne’s grandmother takes her in. Over the course of the film, the father-daughter get to know each other, realising how similar they actually are. And as Henry put it, they both have the same eyes.
What a Girl Wants is warm, fuzzy and strikes all the right chords. The film will instantly make you want to give your father a hug and cherish your relationship with him. It has all the qualities of a feel-good movie but the cherry on top is Firth’s performance. The English actor may be more popular for his role as Mr Darcy in Bridget Jones Diary or as King George VI in The King’s Speech, but his performance in What a Girl Wants will tug at your heartstrings.
Firth is perfect as Lord Dashwood, a man who put forward his duties above his own feelings. He is endearing yet aristocratic at the same time and looks like an absolute dream. The way Firth plays with the character as it evolves is noteworthy. My favourite scene has to be the one on which he speeds away in an “indecorous” fashion with Daphne on a motorbike in a bid to evade the paparazzi.
Firth also shares great chemistry with Bynes which is also one of the reasons why the film manages to keep audiences entertained throughout the film.
What a Girl Wants is easy, charming and will give you a good laugh during this dark, pandemic-striken time.
