What a Girl Wants is the story of a teenage girl named Daphne Reynolds,
played by Amanda Bynes, who travels to England to meet her dad for the very first time.
How does it hold up today? Well, here are some things only adults notice in What a Girl Wants.
We can understand why 17-year-old Daphne, tired of being told that meeting her dad will only set her
up for heartbreak, would decide to finally just pack a bag and fly off to London to meet him.
The question is, though, how does Daphne actually accomplish this?
We'll go ahead and assume that she saved enough money from her waitress job to afford a ticket,
but how does she buy it? You'd think that a mom like Libby,
who is so keen on keeping her kid from seeing her dad,
would either not allow her daughter to obtain a passport or keep it locked up.
If Daphne had been 18, it would have made more sense for her to be able to work out
the logistics of hopping on a plane to another country, but as a minor it seems
like there'd be a lot of hurdles in the way — especially without her mom's permission.
Libby may be the most heartbroken character in What a Girl Wants, but that doesn't quite excuse
her behavior. Henry did break her heart and, yes, breakups can be hard. But aside from all the
miscommunication, Henry doesn't seem like he gave any indication that he'd have been a bad father,
so Libby's decision to keep him from knowing about his daughter doesn't seem to have any real basis.
In the 2003 flick, Libby's argument is even undercut by Daphne early on -
"I was trying to protect you from getting hurt the same way I was."
"You left him, remember?"
In reality, it seems like Libby was trying to keep herself from getting hurt further,
while hurting both Daphne and Henry in the process.
Daphne's choice of luggage raises some questions - when she shows up
at her dad's place in England, she only has one overnight bag in tow,
and it's not even particularly large — especially puzzling because the limited
space available is made even smaller by the photo album she brought to England to show her dad.
Daphne clearly cares about fashion and even redesigns an ugly dress into something more
fashionable later in the movie. So it's hard to believe she'd be okay with just wearing
the same outfit or two for the duration of her trip. Even if that were her plan,
it still doesn't solve the problem of where she's stashing her other important travel items.
We can certainly appreciate Daphne's desire to pack light, but a carry-on suitcase or
even a decently sized backpack would hardly have been overkill for an overseas trip.
Daphne's approach to meeting her dad at the beginning of What a Girl Wants is a bit extreme.
When she sees that his home has a guarded gate, she decides to scale a wall and sneak onto the
grounds. As an adult, you might be thinking: Couldn't she have scheduled an appointment?
Breaking into a gated home with a lot of security seems like an odd choice — not
to mention a potentially dangerous one. She's actually quite lucky that Henry
decides to drag her into the house for questioning after he catches her lurking.
He could have just as easily filed a restraining order with the police without
ever pausing to hear Daphne out. And, really, it would've been completely understandable.
After all of that, though, Daphne still beats around the bush and teases out
the reveal that she's his daughter. Come on Daphne, have some mercy!
Libby is super protective of her daughter throughout the movie,
which is understandable. She's a single mom, and she doesn't want her daughter to get hurt.
That's why it makes no sense when Libby just throws her hands in the air and lets things
unfold when she finds out Daphne defied her and went to England in search of her dad.
First of all, Daphne is a minor. Libby could have demanded that Henry send her home,
or she could have flown to London herself to get her. Of course,
it's good that she finally "allowed" Daphne to spend some time with her father,
but she seems surprisingly relaxed about the entire situation. It also doesn't make sense
that someone as protective as Libby would be okay with her daughter living with total strangers.
Does anyone in What a Girl Wants have good communication skills?
This entire mess could have been avoided if people just talked to each other,
especially Libby and Henry! Yes, they were very young and clearly scared, but if they had just
faced their fears for five minutes and confronted each other, they'd have avoided nearly two decades
of heartache. Instead, they don't get back in contact until Daphne tracks down her dad.
What's even more puzzling is that, at the end of the movie, Henry and Libby get remarried to each
other without even acknowledging their mountain of trust issues. Let's hope that they worked on these
problems off-screen, because otherwise it does not bode well for the future of their relationship.
For some reason, Henry's paternity is never in question, and this seems kind of bizarre. Sure,
Daphne presents a birth certificate with Henry's name on it and a picture of him when he was young,
but why would Henry determine that this is sufficient proof that she's his daughter?
It's especially suspicious that Henry doesn't ask for more proof that he's Daphne's dad,
considering he's a wealthy, high-profile politician. How does he know Daphne isn't
someone his ex-girlfriend hired to dupe him into paying 17 years worth of child support?
He clearly didn't trust Libby enough to look her up after she allegedly broke up with him,
so why would he trust her when she says Daphne is definitely his daughter?
Henry's mother, Lady Dashwood, immediately goes to bat for Daphne when she shows up at their home.
She insists that Daphne stay with the family and brings her to a lavish
guest room. When Daphne tries to hug her in excitement, though, Lady Dashwood snubs her.
"Thank you so much Lady Dashwood."
"No hugs, dear. I'm British. We only show affection to dogs and horses."
No matter how refined the British may be, we're finding it hard to believe that anyone
with a heart would be able to resist hugging their long-lost granddaughter,
especially as it appears that Daphne may be her only grandchild.
That's not the only way Lady Dashwood maintains an air of aloofness,
either. When Daphne calls her grandmother "Lady Dashwood," the stern matriarch does
not invite her to call her something else. It might take a little time for Daphne to work up
to calling her "granny," but calling her by a title feels unnecessarily cold and distant.
When Daphne first lands on the upper-class party circuit, she's viewed as a wild and
uncouth American, in large part because at the first coming-out party she goes to,
she smashes a valuable chandelier by... cranking up the bass? Sure, turning a rigid,
black-tie affair into a dance party may have seemed a bit wild, but all Daphne really did
was get the party going. Leading people out onto the dance floor is really quite mild,
especially when it's done under the watchful eye of your father and your grandmother.
We've also got to wonder how turning up the bass could cause a chandelier to unbolt itself from the
ceiling. If anything, we're willing to point the finger at the homeowner or installer for
failing to properly secure the chandelier. How many stars do they have on Yelp anyway?
What a Girl Wants was released in 2003. Smart phones weren't a thing yet, that's true,
but flip phones and bulky Nokia cell phones were definitely popular among teens and adults alike.
Why did no one think to get Daphne a cell phone, then? Her dad is clearly rich, and a cell phone
would have helped Daphne stay in touch with her mom while in a strange and new environment. A
phone would have also helped Henry keep tabs on his daughter. He clearly worries about her leaving
the house on Ian's motorcycle and, likely, having no way of getting in touch with her.
There's also the fact that the family is being hounded by the press, with paparazzi regularly
hanging outside their front gate. How is Daphne supposed to call for help if she finds herself
pursued by aggressive photographers or if she finds herself lost in London? We need answers.
Daphne is attracted to Ian as soon as she meets him toward the beginning of the film.
He's a hardworking musician determined to make his own way in life without relying
on his wealthy grandparents. While this is admirable, Ian is far from perfect.
"Maybe I should just go home and let him get on with his life."
After Daphne realizes her behavior is causing her dad's political career to suffer,
she decides to become a prim and proper young lady, no matter how miserable it makes her.
She's so busy adjusting to her new lifestyle that she forgets she has plans to go to a concert with
Ian and, when he comes to pick her up, she tells him she has to go to a royal event instead.
While we can understand Ian's disappointment, accusing Daphne of being fake and walking out
on her is harsh and unsupportive. It's not like Daphne is changing who she is to fit in
with her peers, she's doing it for the sake of her relationship with her dad. Somehow, this argument
is never really resolved, but Ian and Daphne just go on to make up by the end of the film.
Exactly how did Daphne get into Oxford at the end? At the beginning of the movie,
the summer is kicking off and she has no idea where she's going to college in the fall.
"No I mean where are you going to college?"
"Oh that would be the University of the Undecided."
"...Is that in Ohio?"
"...Yeah."
Presumably, according to the timeline of the film, Daphne should be going
off to college in a matter of weeks — but she still hasn't been accepted anywhere.
It's hard to believe that she got into Oxford, one of the most prestigious universities in the world,
by applying a few weeks before term started. It's possible that she took a gap year and
the movie's finale jumped us forward. Otherwise, though, we've got to wonder
if Daphne's rich and influential father paid for her to be accepted to school that fall.
For a person who has made a name for himself in politics, Henry is surprisingly bad at
confrontation. When he gets a fake letter from Libby saying she's leaving him for another man,
he doesn't bother to seek closure, he just lets her go. He also breaks up abruptly with Glynnis
at the end, simply telling her she'll be fine without him and then walking away.
The speech he gives explaining why he's withdrawing from his political campaign
is longer than the explanation he gives Glynnis for their breakup,
and while she isn't the nicest person, she still deserves to hear why Henry is calling it quits.
Henry clearly has some abandonment issues, but this is not healthy.
Hopefully, Libby and Daphne help him realize after the events of the film that there are
better ways of dealing with difficult situations than by simply ignoring them.
Armistead is the worst. That's why it's so frustrating that he never gets his
comeuppance. He's a serial harasser who disrespects Clarissa and Daphne and yet
the worst thing that happens to him is getting shoved off a pier — which only
results in Daphne getting in trouble so this can hardly count as justice.
Even more disturbing is the fact that, by the end of the film, we see that Armistead is still
a sleazy creep. He and Clarissa tie the knot, and Armistead immediately forces his attention upon
another unwilling woman, groping one of Clarissa's bridesmaids as the wedding photo is being taken.
But did they get what they deserved? Sure, Clarissa is petty and jealous, but no woman
deserves to be with a man who disrespects her or doesn't understand the importance of consent.
As for Armistead, he ends up married to a wealthy and beautiful woman, which is hardly a punishment.
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