Material Girls

Poor Hilary Duff. Throughout her short career she has faced down unfavourable comparisons with Lindsay Lohan’s cooler, edgier teen queen. Now, in early adulthood, as Hilary toils on perfume brands and pop records and store appearances, Li-Lo can regularly be found face down in vomit. And still she’s more popular than her squeaky clean rival. One suspects the Duff Factor contributed heavily to the unmercifully bad notices handed down to teen-com Material Girls in the US last year. As an aficionado of the riches to rags and back again sub-genre, a veteran of Maid To Order and Trading Places, I can honestly say that it’s not nearly as dreadful as all that. With little difficulty Hilary and her sister Hayley play pretty, silly, rich girls who are forced to fend for themselves when their late daddy’s cosmetic empire gets into legal trouble. Somehow, they must defeat rival industrialist Anjelica Huston, score suitable gentlemen (Haas and Coloma), become better people and save the farm.
Though often rather flimsy looking, Martha Coolidge’s film boasts a neat line in Clueless style patter (“chillax” is a favoured suggestion) and a methadone fix for fans of girlie wish fulfillment. Watch it as a Jackie magazine fumetti and it’s considerably more fun than the similarly themed Just My Luck. Of course, the image-conscious Hilary is too darned nice and image-conscious to really bear her talons as a spoiled little princess but the lesser spotted Hayley Duff is much feistier company.
Oh cruel fate. Eclipsed by Li-Lo and now her own sister. It really can’t be easy being Hilary Duff.