Dare (2009)

Dare, a sweetly sexed-up high school triangle movie, is like a John Hughes comedy trying to pass itself off as ''transgressive.''

To feed her art, Alexa (Emmy Rossum), an overachieving good-girl actress, transforms herself overnight into a lusty siren; Ben (Ashley Springer), her shy, gay loner of a best friend, undergoes just as quick an image makeover, shucking his outcast blues by coming out; and Johnny (Zach Gilford), the school's alienated James Dean, is the love object they both seduce. The actors, all great camera subjects, help give director Adam Salky's overly pat movie a trace of confessional conviction.

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