Whirlygirl(2006)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

As their relationship grows more romantic, Alice/Whirlygirl (Monet Mazur) teaches James (Julian Morris) how to be more adventurous and risk-taking, and James encourages Alice to really think about what she should be doing with her life as well as try to patch things up with her dying mother (which doesn’t end well; she finds out that her mother has already passed away when she goes to the hospital to visit her). Unfortunately for James, his regular visits with Alice land him in more and more trouble with the heads of Walden Academy, since he has been repeatedly lying, missing classes, and breaking curfews in order to do so.

While James is having Alice over in his dorm room one morning following another overnight get-together, his advisor, MacTavish (Rob Sullivan), comes knocking at his door. While Alice hides under James’ bed, MacTavish converses with him and tries to get him to understand that Alice is not someone worth potentially ruining his future over because of her apparent lack of character, and he also tells James that she likely wouldn’t stand up for him if his life depended on it. After MacTavish leaves, James and Alice spend the entire day in his room, but after they have sex that night, she tells him that she can’t see him anymore, feeling that she can’t become the better person that he knows she can be. She then quickly gets dressed and leaves.

James spends the next few days looking and feeling downhearted, but then a night comes where he knows that Alice will be going to a university in town to do a Whirlygirl performance for a fraternity there, and he decides to go see her because, since she will be going to that frat house alone, he is afraid for her safety. He thus steals MacTavish’s car and speeds off towards the university, but the car runs out of gas along the way, forcing him to hitch a ride the rest of the way there from a passing trucker. After arriving at the campus, he runs and finds the frat house, but he is refused entry because the party going on in there is for members only. He then watches through the windows as Alice gets loaded up with booze by the frat brothers before being taken upstairs, so he sneaks his way inside by climbing up a tree, getting on the roof, and entering through one of the windows. He then searches every upstairs room until he enters one to find Alice’s stalker, Monty (Woody Boley), preparing to rape Alice on one of the beds. James brawls with Monty until Monty sends him out the window and down onto the roof of a parked car below, but then, Alice musters up the strength to smash a chair against the back of Monty’s head and knock him out. A while later, James and Alice call for a taxi, and after Alice is taken home first, James rides in the cab back to Walden Academy.

The following day, James attends a meeting set up by the academy’s disciplinary committee, where he is now facing expulsion for all his wrongdoings against the school and now the law. Shortly after the meeting begins, Alice suddenly shows up to defend James, and she tells the committee that he is in this mess because of her. She explains that she has led the life of a con woman, and James tried to wake her up and make her see that she didn’t have to live her life like that, but she didn’t want to listen. She then brings up how he saved her from getting raped and how he speaks of the school, MacTavish, and his friends with nothing but pride and love, and if someone like her can get up off her butt to stand up for him, then surely they can take the time to do the same. She lastly tells them to give James a break, because he is better than any of them. Before leaving, she decides to throw in a bit of blackmail by mentioning how her (now former) sugar daddy, Roger (David Garrison), is a Walden alumnus and a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, and she hints to the committee that she will leak this information out if necessary. Later on, while James is hanging out with his friends and awaiting the committee’s decision, he eventually receives word that the committee has voted to let him stay in school.

Some nights later, James hears a car honking at him from outside his dorm room, so he goes outside and finds Alice standing beside a cheap used car that she just acquired. After they share a hug, she tells him that she is leaving town, having opted to drive out West somewhere (most likely to California) to start her life anew. She extends an invitation for him to come with her, but he replies that he wants to stay here and finish his education. She then tells him that, while she wouldn’t call it love, he really got to her, and they have a big goodbye kiss before she gets back in her car. As she starts to drive away, James stops her and gives her his late father’s wristwatch – the very thing that brought them together – as a going-away present, and she promises him that she will give it back to him one day. As he watches her drive off, he smiles and says, “I know you will.”