Drive Me Crazy is a high school romcom teen movie from 1999, answering to troperiffic traditions of the genre in The '90s. It is named after the Britney Spears song by the same name, which is featured in the film's soundtrack. Melissa Joan Hart as Nicole, a popular Extracurricular Enthusiast Genki Girl. She used to be friends with Chase, the Troubled, but Cute boy next door, portrayed by Adrian Grenier. She and her Alpha Bitch best friend Alicia are in with the in crowd and she is avidly planning the Centennial party for their school. The Cynic that she is, she plans on most-popular-guy ever, Jerk Jock Brad, to take her to that party, even though they are not dating and he has apparently fallen in love with a ditzy Pom-Pom Girl cheerleader. Afraid of the humiliation of going to snag her own in-universe crowning Moment of Awesome, she asks Chase to go with her. As Chase was recently dumped by his Soapbox Sadie girlfriend, Dulcie (Ali Larter), he obliges and crosses high school social dividers into Nicole's posse, going from a loser to the new it guy, to the dismay of his friends.
Provides Examples Of:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Chase
- All Love Is Unrequited: Ray has feelings for Nicole, Alicia and Nicole are both scheming to get Brad's affection and approval, while he falls for a different girl.
- Always Someone Better: it's very clear that Alicia is very jealous of Nicole, to the point of deliberately sabotaging Nicole's love life. She convinces Brad not to go after Nicole after his break up and tries to seduce him herself, and aggressively hits on Chase at a house party just so Nicole can see them kissing.
- Birds of a Feather:
- Dave and Dee are a romantic, played straight example, as both are sweet, shy nice kids with a deep need for approval.
- An interesting platonic variation of the trope is lampshaded by Dee, who calls Chase a "kindred spirit", as both are former nerds who made it into the cool kids crowd via makeovers.
- Beautiful All Along - Chase, to the surprise of exactly no one.
- Becoming the Mask
- Be Yourself
- Comically Serious: Dulcie, at times.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Nicole is the blonde both to Aloof Dark-Haired Girl Alicia and Darker and Edgier Dulcie.
- Expy: One can only hope the creators of the film realized how much this film's plot resembles Can't Buy Me Love.
- Extracurricular Enthusiast: Nicole
- Extreme Doormat: Designated Dave, who will keep sucking up to awful Jerk Jock types who won't stop calling him Designated Dave or treat him like he's an actual person.
- Fake Band: Chase is a fan of rock band The Electrocutes, who are portrayed by The Donnas (a band who did originally call themselves The Electrocutes before getting signed)
- Geek Physique: Designated Dave, as well as Dee in her formerly fat days.
- Genki Girl: Nicole
- Heel Realization: Nicole has a minor one when she realizes how mean she and her friends were to mock Ray and Dave, Chase's old friends.
- Jerk Jock: most of them, but emotionally abusive Eddie is by absolutely the worst.
- Meaningful Name: Dulcie, short for Dulcinea, is idealized by Chase.
- Oblivious to Love: Chase is pretty unaware that Nicole has developed real feelings for him.
- The Prankster: Chase and Ray.
- Tsundere: Duclie, towards Chase.
- Soapbox Sadie: Dulcie and her "edgy" passion for spoken word poetry and Animal Wrongs Group antics.
- We Used to Be Friends: Chase and Nicole, originally, but also Chase with Ray and Dave for a while.
