The late 1990s have seen an onslaught of high school romantic comedies and Drive Me Crazy, starring Sabrina The Teenager Witch's Melissa Joan Hart, is yet another in this mould.

She plays squeaky-clean Nicole Maris, a popular, attractive student who is on the organising committee for her school's upcoming Centennial Celebration Dance.

Grenier plays Chase Hammond, the boy next door who realises that both he and Nicole may be dateless for the important event. So they decide to team up and convince everyone that they're an item.

In order to implement the scam, Nicole spruces up grungy Chase; gives him a haircut and drags him along to pep rallies and get-togethers with her friends.

Chase begins to enjoy his new cool image and drifts away from his old friends.

The main advantage of this ploy is that their real objects of desire should be consumed with jealousy and will come running into their arms.

Of course, we recognise that these two are destined to be together (a fact that kills any real tension), but the film toys with the possibility of pairing them off with others, which makes the conclusion slightly more surprising.

Commercially, this movie has no faults. It fulfils all the pre-requisites of a Hollywood teen movie - a glamorous cast, moral dilemmas and teenage romance.

Also, many of the cast members are instantly recognisable from such movies as Varsity Blues, Can't Hardly Wait and 10 Things I Hate About You.

For Hart this is a starring vehicle as she's only been seen on TV, and at times in the film it is clear that she is streched.

Drive Me Crazy is something more than just another adolescent, teen-angst yarn.

It is based on a novel called How I Created My Perfect Prom Date by Todd Strasser, and has a grim undertone. Brainless jocks and pretty superficial girls are a-plenty but the film unexpectedly reveals confusing, painful questions about identity in young adulthood.

The tone of the film is surprisingly dark. The grottiness of hard partying, sex and alcohol abuse is frighteningly real but refrains from preaching.

Natalie Stone