6 rom-com reporters, ranked

5. Josie Geller, Never Been Kissed

Publication: The Chicago Sun-Times

Backstory: Josie is a shy, awkward copy editor at the Sun-Times who randomly gets picked to go undercover at a local high school (ostensibly because she’s the youngest-looking staffer in the room?). The story is her big break and she’s terrified. High school was a traumatic time for Josie and going back brings back a flood of painful memories. But then, of course, her older brother Rob (David Arquette) finds a way to pass as a high school student too (who’s running the enrollment office at this school? Do they not know the difference between 16-year-olds and men in their early 30s?). Rob is able to usher Josie into the cool clique. Hearts are broken. Lessons are learned.

Journalistic talent: Full disclosure: I love this movie. Drew Barrymore is darling, Michael Vartan is dreamy, and if you turn on the last scene on the baseball diamond, I will cry no matter what. That being said, for all Josie’s dreams of being a journalist making an impact on the world, she’s pretty bad at it. There’s a dramatic scene after Josie’s cover is blown at the prom where Josie stands up for her assignment in the newsroom. “We are not screwed,” she yells to her editors. “Yes, I made a mistake. But we will have a story, okay? You will have an *amazing* story.” And then the story is *so* not amazing.

It barely says anything about her experience at the high school or about what high school is like today, which was her actual assignment. She even starts by suggesting she’s going to share what she learned but what she learned is super vague. She describes the mean girls she semi befriended as “the ones that, even as you grow up, will remain the most beautiful girls you have ever seen close up,” only that seems like an inappropriately kind way to describe terrible people who threw dog food on her actual friends. Also, they probably won’t remain the most beautiful girls because they probably peaked in high school.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that she also falls in love with her story subject. (And he falls back in love with her which is actually pretty creepy when you think about it.) I’ll give her a pass this time, though, because, again, Michael Vartan in this film = peak dreaminess.