Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, a raft of teen sex comedies was released that ran the gamut from dubiously intentioned to downright offensive. Of these, American Pie, which spawned an incredible seven sequels of quickly diminishing quality, is considered the pinnacle. And yet, trying to get through the movie nowadays proves difficult. Maybe it’s the all-white cast, the fact that female characters are given nothing to do besides taking their tops off and nagging the boys for acting up, or just simply that the pathos isn’t earned, and that the premise is wafer thin. The gross out humor, meanwhile, is worse than you remember; mean-spirited, dumb and not funny enough to justify its inclusion. Just two years after American Pie was released, however, another teen movie came out that, although marketed in much the same way, had little of the raunchiness and all the laughs. 

Get Over It (2001) is the kind of movie you’re either obsessed with or have never heard of before. The poster suggests wacky, prop-based hijinks, while the European trailer memorably replaced the word “arm” with “buttocks,” presumably in an attempt to sell the film as the kind of racy comedy that was popular at the time. But what is so wonderful about Get Over It is how distinctly unique the movie is from others of its ilk. Directed by Tommy O’Haver, who would go on to helm the Anne Hathaway movie Ella Enchanted, and scripted by R. Lee Fleming Jr., who wrote She’s All That just a couple years prior, Get Over It boasts perhaps the greatest early-2000s cast ever assembled. Even if O’Haver and Fleming Jr. had flubbed it in every conceivable way — and they didn’t, to be clear — the amount of undeniable star power on display would’ve ensured that the movie worked. 

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An incredibly young Ben Foster, before his method acting days of walking through the snow barefoot to convincingly play a vagabond in a jail cell for maybe 10 minutes of screen-time, leads the charge as the surprisingly nebbish Berke Landers. Kirsten Dunst — then at the height of her youthful career thanks to starring roles in The Virgin Suicides, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Bring It On and Crazy/Beautiful — is the girl who’s clearly crazy about Berke. Rounding out the cast are a then-unknown Colin Hanks, son of Tom, Dru Hill lead singer Sisqó, Mila Kunis, Shane West, Zoe Saldana and, as Berke’s ex-girlfriend and obsessive object of his affection, Melissa Sagemiller. The adult actors are even better, with Swoosie Kurtz and Ed Begley Jr. playing Berke’s inappropriate but well-meaning parents, and the incomparable Martin Short portrays a nightmare drama teacher Dr. Desmond Forrest Oates (what a name). 

There are plenty of specific 2001 details sprinkled throughout Get Over It, not least the cameos from Carmen Electra and Coolio, but the time period is best exemplified by the truly insane opening number performed by Vitamin C, who is best known for the graduation song “Graduation (Friends Forever).” There’s another musical sequence over the closing credits — a duet between Vitamin C and Sisqó — that bizarrely finds the principal cast decked out in 70s gear as everybody belts out Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” against an unconvincing green screen for no apparent reason. These moments represent Get Over It’s weirdly earnest approach, evidenced further by Dr. Forrest Oates informing an unimpressed Kelly (Dunst) and Basin (Kunis) that the spring musical, “A Midsummer Night’s Rockin’ Eve,” is “classic Shakespeare with a contemporary musical twist.” The film itself is also a take on this idea, particularly in how it utilizes magical surrealism. 

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Get Over It is sort of a forgotten modern Shakespearean adaptation, primarily because 10 Things I Hate About You is so beloved, but it goes one step further than that film by featuring an actual school production as part of its setup. The sets and costumes are lovely but believably low rent, while the surprisingly catchy songs are enthusiastically performed by the young cast but still cringeworthy enough that watching them is akin to witnessing an actual high school production. The story is contextualized for a modern audience while warmly-lit surrealist interludes provide the necessary color and depth. These elements feature heavily throughout and are used to great comedic effect for Forrest Oates’ fantasy tangents (his “One Man Hamlet” truly must be seen to be believed). 

Likewise, Berke’s many doomed interactions with his ex, Allison, tend to devolve into neat visualizations of him spinning into oblivion or screaming until his head pops off. In the most effective use of this technique, a dance club that’s full to the brim with grinding teens empties completely, singling Berke out as he watches Allison kiss the oily Striker (portrayed by West, who adopts a purposely terrible English accent — “he sounds like Madonna” quips Hanks’ Felix). Berke is consistently a victim of his own folly, whether he’s getting repeatedly injured or accidentally going full frontal at a basketball game. Foster reads like strange casting on paper, but he’s adept at playing a brooding, nerdy dude who’s got a million dollar heart and nickel head. 

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Dunst proves an ideal foil for Berke, their chemistry fizzing with each increasingly intimate interaction. The two dated for a short while offscreen, which surely contributed to the natural rapport between their characters, suggesting years of seeing each other around but never truly seeing each other. Dunst has a surprisingly good singing voice, too, but it’s raw rather than polished to perfection like the CW stars who get to showcase how supposedly multitalented they are each week with godawful renditions of “Shallow” or “I Want Candy.” Plenty of women worked behind the scenes on Get Over It and, although the writer and director are both men, the female characters are well-drawn and three-dimensional, except for poor Maggie (Saldana) whose sole role is to respond to Allison and then betray her. Still, Saldana has a habit of doing great work even when she’s given scraps, appearing in Crossroads opposite Britney Spears the very next year and killing it there, too. 

Everything about Get Over It is colorful and summer-y, despite the fact that it was filmed in Ontario. Although clothing and accessories choices tend to date early-2000s fare, laid-back styling makes Get Over It timeless. Sagemiller’s neon eyeshadow clashes with her poker straight ginger bob, but there’s not a too-long scarf or sparkly headband in sight. The cast is dressed like regular teens too, which is a rarity. Short, meanwhile, sports a soul-patch that solidifies just how much of a tool he is (he also has fun with wigs and wardrobe in the aforementioned fantasies, which quite literally bubble up onscreen as his character looks on with goofy wistfulness). Forrest Oates is a genius creation, particularly when directing the seemingly-useless kids. Every effortlessly cutting line is funny in Short’s capable hands (example: “You’d tell me if you’d had a stroke?”). 

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Fleming Jr.’s script is whip-smart, loaded with quotable lines and the joke hit rate is high. Get Over It does have its smutty moments, including a horny dog, ill-advised sex club sojourn and the drinking of what can only be described as puke punch, but it’s good fun rather than gross out humor. Berke’s folks, who have their own relationship advice talk show and encourage their son to be more sexually active — “you’re my parents for god’s sake, stop trusting me!” he implores them at one point — are hilariously frank and, although Kurtz and Begley Jr. understandably take a backseat, the little screen-time they get is pure gold. The filmmakers assembled a smorgasbord of early-2000s talent, but they’re wise enough to use the older actors properly, as opposed to poor Eugene Levy who, it’s worth noting, insisted on re-writing his American Pie character to make him less creepy. 

The romance between Kelly and Berke is sweet but not overpowering, organic rather than forced, which exemplifies how well each relationship is treated. The boys have their ribbing, the girls gossip and the adults stick their noses in. These feel like real people who have known each other forever, rather than a bunch of gorgeous actors who’ve been forced together and whose alleged closeness makes no sense outside the strict bounds of the story itself. Where American Pie introduced an inciting incident and then nailed itself to it at the cost of everything else, Get Over It uses the musical as the big finale but allows much of the action to revolve around it. Even how Berke ends up (badly) playing a lead role feels natural — it’s not Oz unconvincingly singing in the choir, that’s for sure. The ending is fun but not overly neat or smarmy, emphasizing the tight narrative structure. There’s no overcompensating either — everything and everybody is given space to breathe. 

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Looking back on early-2000s fare, Get Over It stands out as smarter, sweeter, funnier and weirder than many of its contemporaries, but the movie particularly deserves a revisit more than American Pie, whose emphasis on male sexuality is stomach-churningly misguided. Like 10 Things I Hate About You, this is the kind of teen movie that gets better with age. Turning 20 does nothing to dull its shine, despite the lack of smart phones in use. Shakespeare might be no Burt Bacharach, but he’d be proud of this inventive and sweet-natured modern twist on one of his most famous works. Plus, Get Over It is Daniel Radcliffe’s comfort movie, and who are we to argue with Harry Potter?

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs.