Never Been Kissed is a 1999 American romantic comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell. It stars Drew Barrymore, Jessica Alba, David Arquette, Michael Vartan, Leelee Sobieski, Jeremy Jordan, Molly Shannon, Garry Marshall, and John C. Reilly.

The film follows shy newspaper reporter Josie Geller, who enters high school undercover to research a story. While there, she and English teacher Sam Coulson both start to fall for each other without meaning to.

Never Been Kissed was released in movie theaters on April 9, 1999, by 20th Century Fox. Critics gave it mixed reviews, but the movie was a box-office success. It earned $84 million, which is much more than its $25 million budget.

Plot

Josie Geller is a 25-year-old copy editor who works for the Chicago Sun-Times. She has never had a serious relationship. One day, her editor-in-chief, Rigfort, asks her to go undercover at a high school to help parents learn more about their children's lives.

Josie's first day at South Glen South High School is difficult. She starts acting like the shy student she was in high school, which made her feel unhappy before. She also has a bad experience with three popular girls named Kirsten, Gibby, and Kristin, and the school's most popular student, Guy Perkins. Feeling discouraged, Josie is comforted by Aldys, a kind student who dislikes Guy and his friends. Aldys invites Josie to join the Denominators, a group of smart students.

Josie becomes close to her English teacher, Sam Coulson, and is the top student in his class. After reading a romantic passage from Shakespeare to Sam, Josie has painful memories of reading a poem aloud to her high school crush, Billy Prince, who later asked her to the senior prom. However, on the night of the prom, Billy arrives with another girl, and both of them throw eggs and insults at Josie, making her feel hurt and brokenhearted.

One night, Josie drives with Aldys and meets Guy and his friends at a local hangout called "The Court," where students drink alcohol and act inappropriately. Her managing editor, Augustus "Gus" Strauss, becomes frustrated when another newspaper reports on "The Court" first. He tells Josie to befriend the popular students and gives her a hidden camera to record her experiences. Soon, the entire office becomes interested in her story.

Josie shares her fears with her brother, Rob, who was the most popular student in his high school. Rob encourages Josie to stop thinking about her past and start fresh. To help her, Rob enrolls as a student and quickly becomes popular. He uses his influence to help Josie join the cool group, which disappoints Aldys.

Josie and Sam grow closer, but Sam struggles because he believes Josie is a student. At the prom, Josie and Guy attend as characters from Shakespeare's As You Like It. Gus and Josie's coworkers watch through the camera and are excited when Josie is voted prom queen. When Guy dances with Aldys as a fake act of kindness, the mean girls try to pour dog food on Aldys. Josie stops them, throws away her crown, and tells the students that being popular in high school does not matter in real life. Sam is hurt by Josie's lies and says he no longer wants to see her. Rob is also angry because Josie revealed his secret identity as a fake student who got a second chance at baseball. Josie makes amends by helping Rob get a job as a baseball coach at the school.

Josie promises Gus she will write a story about her experience. In it, she admits she has never been kissed, describes the students at South Glen South High School, and expresses her feelings for Sam. The city is moved by her story. She writes that she will stand on a baseball field with a countdown and wait for Sam to kiss her. Josie waits, but the clock runs out without Sam appearing. Just as she is about to give up, the crowd cheers, and Sam arrives to give her a romantic kiss. The movie ends with Sam saying it took him a long time to reach her, and Josie agrees as they kiss again.

Production

The film is based on real-life news articles written by Shann Jones (formerly Nix) about her experience as an undercover senior student at San Francisco's George Washington High School in 1992. At that time, Jones worked for the San Francisco Chronicle. She took on the task from the newspaper to investigate the negative effects of California's school funding cuts, which were caused by the state's Proposition 13 property tax reduction.

Jackie Robinson Stadium was the location used for the important scene where Josie waits for her first real kiss from Sam.

Reception

The film was released in North America on April 9, 1999, and played in 2,455 theaters. It earned $55.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $29.1 million in other countries, for a total of $84.6 million worldwide. This amount was made against a production budget of $25 million.

Critics had mixed opinions about the film. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a "Rotten" score of 55% based on 91 reviews, which was the highest rating for the director, Gosnell. The general opinion stated, "Drew Barrymore's cheerful charm is almost enough to make people forget how silly the story is." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, gave the film a score of 60 out of 100 based on 26 critics, showing "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on a scale from A+ to F.

Film critic Roger Ebert, who was the movie reviewer for the real Sun-Times at the time, gave the film three out of four stars. He said, "The movie's story is not very original, but Barrymore brings happiness to it and makes a character people like." He also noted that the workplace shown in the film was not accurate compared to real newspapers, joking that the hidden camera technology used in the movie was not actually available at the time.

The film has gained a cult following over time. For the 20th anniversary of its release on April 9, 2019, Barrymore shared the following on social media:

Television series

On November 6, 2020, during the "Drew's News" segment of The Drew Barrymore Show, Drew Barrymore played the role of Josie "Grossie" Geller. Josie wore a pink satin prom dress, a matching scrunchie, and braces, resembling her appearance in 1988. She participated in an interview with Barrymore, unaware of events since that time. Josie later became a regular part of the show's comedy segments, with Barrymore interviewing the cast of Dear Evan Hansen while in character as Josie.

Barrymore portrayed Josie again on December 13, 2021, during another episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. This time, she interviewed Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who were in character as Maya Ishii-Peters and Anna Kone from the TV series PEN15.