Troop Beverly Hills

It always frosts my cookies* a bit to find that my favorite films as a child were viciously and maliciously torn apart by critics. Here I'd been thinking this movie was on par with other representations of fine art, when more cognizant adults degraded my love for this movie with their scathing critiques. Indeed, Troop Beverly Hills, arguably one of my favorite childhood movies, boasts an impressive (okay, depressive) 8% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not only that, but the only positive review is downright confusing to me as I had assumed myself the target audience for the film:

It's a treat (and necessity) not only for youngish gay boys, but for anyone who enjoys campy good fun with the added bonus of watching dominant cultural values self-destruct.

Right. Okay. At least they threw in that bonus. I was afraid I'd have to let dominant cultural values uphold their lofty position, but luckily they're on the verge of nuclear implosion. And all thanks to Troop Beverly Hills. Who knew?


Perhaps the problem with these reviews was not the movie itself but the jadedness of these adult critics. Yes, I understand that by nature assuming the title of critic allows you to criticize, but it also at times morphs you into too cynical a skeptic to just delight in something light and fluffy and substanceless. As a child, things like plot and nuance and character development are arbitrary. Why settle for a well-written script when there were cupcake dresses to be worn and cookie time songs to be sung. Am I right?

Troop Beverly hills is admittedly somewhere relative to cotton candy on the substance scale of movies. It confirms all of our lurking stereotyped suspicious about the wealthy and it's not exactly a feminist manifesto, but dammit, it's fun. There's even a light sprinkling of salt-of-the-earth values thrown in there for good measure. Well, sort of.

The movie showcases Shelley Long as Phyllis Neffler, a Beverly Hills socialite in the midst of a divorce from her new-moneyful husband. To prove herself as more than just the shallow social climber she probably is, Phyllis opts to become a troop leader for her daughter Hannah's troop of Wilderness Girls. You know, like the Girl Scouts, but with less copyright infringements.



You've got to admit, you've never seen anything campier, save for the troop's camping trip at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That's right, he totally said "khaki wishes and cookie dreams." You're only wishing you'd come up with it first.

So we get Phyllis, compulsive shopper and outrageous late-80s couture-wearer extraordinaire, boldly going where no trophy wife has tread before. Her daughter's troopmates are an eclectic cross section of the rich and famous: darling offspring of famous athletes, out-of-work actors, and foreign dictators round out their motley crew. Though Phyllis is certainly not an ideal troop leader, she's better than the alternative of nobody. Well, sort of.

There is one little fly in the bug spray, though. Rival troop Redfeathers' crazy leader Vesta Plendor, is out to expose Phyllis for what we all already know that she is: a fraud with a big checkbook. Vesta takes this whole thing way too seriously, resorting to some pretty dirty tricks to keep Troop Beverly Hills down. She even goes so far as to enlist her assistant Annie as a spy to infiltrate the Beverly Hills troop.

Initially unsuspecting of Vesta's distasteful scheming, Phyllis sets to work on bettering her troop. She is not such of fan of any existing badges, but she does go to town on the make-your-own-badge project. Literally. They go to town. There's a shopping badge. Jewelry appraisal. It's just so satisfyingly campy. They power through their cookie sales with over the top sales strategies and even a huge troop gala. All seems to be going swimmingly for the newly uplifted Troop Beverly Hills.

The culmination of their work, the Jamboree, is sabotaged by the vicious Vesta-led Redfeathers. Oh, and there are also some lovely trying moments of bonding between the girls. Aww.



The Redfeathers power on, even as Vesta is injured. Her daughter (played by Tori Spelling) and the rest of the troop abandon her in her usual spirit of winning. They finish first, but without a troop leader, their victory is hollow and the girls are disqualified. Just then, Troop Beverly Hills emerges from around the bend, dragging the washed-up Vesta. All's well that end's well. Phyllis and her husband reunite, Vesta gets some K-mart employee blue-smocked comeuppance, yada yada yada, we all live happily ever after.

Irony is notably lacking from this movie, which is fortunate as its major target demographic was the under-12 set. Troop Beverly Hills has no wry remarks on wealth in society, no biting social commentary, and little satirical value. But it does have this**:

The greatest cheesy girl scout cookie-themed movie song I know of, to date

And in the end, isn't that all that really counts?






*This is a line from the movie. Please tell me you caught this.
**It's entirely possible that when I purchased this DVD, some of my roommates and I may have watched this song on repeat. I'm not saying it happened, I'm just saying it's possible that we learned the full song and dance. Intoxication may have been involved.