‘Heath Ledger is the new Matt Damon...’
It’s easy to see why Josie and the Pussycats was dismissed upon release back in 2001. It’s based on a property that started as a comic book and a Saturday morning kids’ TV show, the cast contains several actors famous for appearing in films specifically designed for teenagers (namely Tara Reid and Rachael Leigh Cook), and the plot is daft and tedious in places. What can’t be denied, however, is that at its best, Josie and the Pussycats does to the music industry what Zoolander did to the fashion industry – namely delivering a searing takedown…
Josie McCoy (Leigh Cook) is the lead singer of a struggling rock ‘n’ roll three-piece made up of herself, bassist Valerie (Rosario Dawson) and drummer Melody Valentine (Reid). Following the death of a popular boy band in a plane crash (made up of real-life teen heartthrobs Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer and Seth Green plus unknown actor Alexander Martin), the subsequent void in the music industry leads to Josie and her band The Pussycats being signed by sleazy record label exec Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming) and his unscrupulous boss Fiona (Parker Posey). It soon becomes clear, however, that MegaRecords is into more than just selling music.
While Josie and the Pussycats is broad in its characterisation and the acting is spotty, joint writer-directors Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan are unflinching in their criticism of the greed of the music industry and the film comments on product placement in a way that other movies with a supposed more artistic bent never did. It helps that the songs written for the fictional band slap although it is perhaps worrying that if Josie and the Pussycats were a real band in today’s musical landscape they would probably be selling out arenas such is the dire state of guitar music in 2024.
Josie and the Pussycats was derided upon release but has since developed a cult following and it’s easy to see why. The mixture of youthful exuberance, social satire and the 2001-ness of it all makes the whole thing tough to resist. And why would you want to? Good, clean fun.